The Trivial Delay Series
by Alex the Anachronistic
Summary: Snape dwells in California on business, and is constantly harangued by a 16yearold with a wacky imagination. A series of many short stories involving Snape and Cherry Peterson. 1 through 7 composed very badly, among my first writing endeavors on here.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, etc. J.K.R. does. Neither do I own Starbucks, Princess Lea, Star Wars, Johnny Depp, or anything else that I talk about in here. But I do have some of my own original characters (er, character. Cherry the Narrator. Woot!) in here. Please don't take her! However, if you do, I can't see what I can do about it. Just refrain, please?

_Note: I wrote the first seven of these Trivial Delays while not making a point to avoid mediocrity, almost two years ago. But I do not care to change them. I uploaded them one at a time, as I wrote them, eager to increase my number of stories. But in these times when my count is far higher, they were cluttering up my profile something awful. Their stench has been getting to me more and more until today I finally decided to put them all where they all belong: condensed into one 'story'. You can see my improved writing skills with the tales following 'Chapter 7'. Each was originally produced on an individual basis, and is not intended to be serious work. Consider each chapter as a new story, in other words, and don't criticize my writing skills for seriously depleting in a day. I know my work is significantly better nowadays, thanks very much. Now surrender yourself to strange randomness. _

A Trivial Delay on the Way to Starbucks

It is August. The sparse and occasional trees that dot the sidewalks of the Muggle L.A. suburb in heated California don't look anywhere close to shedding their leaves come fall. The heat is abominable, the air so heavy and solid you might have been able to slice it. The palm trees stand majestically over everything, and, due to their extreme popularity in this near-desert, are visible in any direction you might choose to turn your head. The sky is the bluest of blues, and is almost unbelievably so. A gentle, wispy cloud mars its deep fathomless depth, slowly rolling across the sky as though oblivious to the fact that it didn't belong there.

If one merely turned from walking along the side of the main highway onto a side road, one suddenly encountered a residential area. Not over-large houses lined the street on either side, their yards most often in a very deplorable order with parched dry grass in the lawns and dying flowers in the planters. Most of these houses also could have done with a good paint job, too, but, then, most of the cars that stood outside of the houses could have done with more.

It was down one of these sideroad's sidewalks that a tall figure clad in all black (Muggle clothes, though) stalked determinedly. His long lanky hair blew only with the force of his motion in the stagnant air. His fingers, long and clawlike, he alternately wrung together in agitation or stuck in the pockets of his dark jeans. And scarily enough, he was wearing a long-sleeved sweater even as the heat seemed to radiate from the very concrete beneath him. The only non-menacing thing about this man was the fact that he was headed towards a Starbucks. Of course, this was our favorite snarky old professor, Severus Snape. But _what_ in heaven's name is he doing in the States, much less in California? Well, let's try and find out.

A teenage girl with a notepad and pencil jumps out of one of the bushes mere seconds after he passes. She's looking far less Muggle than Severus, with flowing robes of midnight blue color, almost black, and her long dirty-blonde hair done up like Princess Lea's from Star Wars. She looks, in fact, very much like Luna Lovegood…only she isn't. No, indeed, this is but the narrator/writer/authoress person, Cherry. She's in love with Severus but, since he doesn't exist in her world, she has had to come into his via her writing. Being careful not to be seen by him, she meanders a good thirty feet behind, writing this paragraph feverishly. Snape does not notice her nor does he even care if someone is behind him. His ultimate gain is to get to Starbucks, and nothing is going to stop him…

A random kid with a water gun in jams jumps out of the blue right into Severus' path, his gun raised defiantly at the professor's abnormally enlarged nose.

"Stick 'em up!" shrieks the kid, a big grin on his face.

…Well, maybe something was going to stop him. But not this brat in jams. Severus angrily glowered at the kid and tried to get past. However, the kid's two friends popped out of nowhere to help, and they all stood there, their arms raised and pointing at Severus, blocking the sidewalk. Cherry was laughing demonically behind them, but no one noticed her because she said so.

Severus sighed. Without a word, he gave the kids one last glare and stepped out into the street. That was a bad idea. Cherry instantly whipped up a giant oil truck out of thin air and it came down the road full speed at Severus. Severus leaped back just in time. Annoyingly, the truck parked right there and didn't do anything else. So, for Snape, it was either go up the street and come back a different way or get past the kids. And he had no time for the former (or so Cherry dictated it), so he settled for the latter.

"Kids, let me by." He assumed his most threatening tones. However, the kids just giggled.

"He talks funny" said one loudly.

Severus sneered. "I don't talk funny," he said superiorly, "I talk like an Englishman. Now let me by." His tone, and eyes for that matter, to any sane person would have also indicated, _"…or else."_ However, he was no match for the kiddies. They began to randomly kick his shins like the little spoiled children that they were, laughing all the while. Whenever he tried to break out of their little circle either way, they would close around him and step on his feet.

Finally, amid all their torture, one of the kids asked, "Who are you, anyway?"

Snape was taken aback. Here he was, on a secret spy mission for Dumbledore (a/n: muahaha that means, to you people out there, that Dumbledore ISN'T DEAD, mind you…) and he was accosted by these infernal children who requested to know his name! He was angry, and he just blurt out a name that came randomly to his head. He thought he had seen it on a poster on a bus or somewhere, but he didn't care.

"Depp," he said savagely, trying more to shake the kids off.

"What's your first name?" they kept pestering him.

"John," he said quickly. "I'm John Depp, now leave me alone."

He was surprised when they actually did let go of his feet and stopped pointing the water pistols and actually stepped back with awe. Even at their age, they recognized and honored the name of the great Johnny Depp. Of course, Severus had no idea who the heck Johnny Depp was, much less why the kids were acting like they were.

"Um…bye now…" he said quickly, and tried to make his speedy departure. However…

"Mr. Depp?"

He spun around angrily. "What is it?"

The little kid beamed, holding up his water gun and a permanent marker he had found very conveniently on the ground thanks to Cherry's narrator powers. "Can I have your autograph?"

Snape mentally cursed. Well, he did so out loud. The kids stared. "Wow…" one of the kids said. "That was sooo cool! Bloody Hell!" he echoed Snape.

Snape smacked his forehead exasperatedly. "Blo--" he almost said again, but he caught himself just in time. "Children. Curse them all," he muttered under his breath. And before Cherry could delay him any further, he was off hurriedly down the street to Starbucks.

The End.

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Hey, I know it sucked, but please review anyhow! I wrote this in half an hour based on a burst of inspiration I had at two in the morning, you can't blame me!


	2. Chapter 2

A Second Trivial Delay 

DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, etc. J.K.R. does. And I don't own any of the stores or other locations in this story; they really exist. Nor do I own 'The Ultimate Showdown' though it is kinda cool. However, I did create Cherry. That's me. Heh, I understand it took a rocket scientist's brain to comprehend that, but that's ok.

By the way, this story is for a certain Jonathan. T. He asked me to write this. I did. His only requests were: to have a panda in it, and to mention a puppy anywhere in it. Well, here is what I did for ya, kid, hope you like it.

Oh yeah, this is the second of a series, 'Snape at Starbucks' is the first of the 'Trivial Delay' series. When I first wrote 'Snape at Starbucks' a week or so ago, I didn't ever think I would add on to it. Heh, well once again I prove myself wrong. So, anyhow, enjoy!

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It was March in the California L.A. suburb of Whittier. Not only was it March, but it was a very, very rainy March. This was somewhat refreshing to the various residents of the good-sized town, for their skies had been devoid of many good rainstorms ever since the El Nino years in the early to middle 1990s. (Thus one may safely conclude that this day and age was the current year, 2006.) Anyhow, so basically, it was raining horribly. The clouds hung low, heavy, and gray in the heavens. A chill breeze swept over everything, strong enough to catch up unfolded umbrellas and flip them over. Rain pelted the already-soaked sidewalks in varying strengths; sometimes it would be barely a drizzle, then in a second it would change to as thick a downpour as you might see in New England. People alternatively were dashing illegally across the streets and risking being hit by a car or dashing under overhangs and into whatever store they could find to dash into. Cars, as they sped down the street, blew a cascade of grungy water from the street into the faces of unsuspecting pedestrian passerby and the cars behind them. People walked around with umbrellas and raincoats and pretended that it was very, very cold when in reality it was only about fifty-five degrees outside. The schools were still in session and most people still at work, since it was early in the day yet. All this was pretty much typical of a stormy day in this town. However, there was one subject that did not fit the scene. 

A tall lanky man, about 6-4 or 5, with long, almost feminine black hair, heavy brows, and sallow skin walked, head bent down so that we couldn't see his gigantic beaklike nose, along the sidewalk. He was donned in a black sweater that was probably not waterproof, a pair of very proper and once-pressed black trousers, and enormous black boots. What with all the black, he almost appeared to be what are commonly called 'goths' or 'emos,' who are in reality just teenagers who like to be different. However, when finally he stops at the corner of Catalina and Whittier Blvd to press the cross-walk button and flip his dank wet hair back, we can see that he's probably on the good side of forty or just slightly more. We then conclude, 'Aha! Who is about the good side of forty or just slightly more in age, likes black, and has an infamous nose? Why, this must be Severus Snape, our favorite Death Eater!" And indeed, this was exactly who it was.

His hair, as he flips it back with his long fingers impatiently, refuses to stay over his shoulders and returns to its native position in his face. Slightly frustrated, he sweeps them back again and looks to the sky.

"Bloody hell, you would expect for it to be just a tad bit sunny. This IS California, after all…" he murmurs under his breath. Suddenly, a man randomly appears out of nowhere, as though he had just disapparated from someplace, and holds out a fistful of money to Severus.

"Buy me a hamburger," the man says good-naturedly, pointing across the intersection to a grungy little building with the words "NORMS! Voted best burgers in Whittier!" and yhada yhada yhada. Snape looks at the man coldly.

"I'm not your servant," Snape declares haughtily.

"I never said ya were," the guy said. "Come on," he continued, "I'll even pay ya for your trouble!"

"Why don't you go yourself?" asked Snape.

" 'Cause," said the guy simply.

"Because…why?"

Suddenly, the guy's good-naturedness turns to positive evilness. He thrusts his other hand into his raincoat pocket and points something threateningly in his pocket at Snape. "Because I have 'lil ol' Betsy here to take care of you if you don't."

Snape looked at the man. He didn't quite like the tone the other was using, although he had no idea that the other man had a gun in his pocket. But he resisted the temptation of asking, "And who might this Betsy be?" Instead he put out his hand warily.

"So do you want chips with that?"

Cherry watched from the ajar door of the rather disreputable recreational business by the name of the Plush Cue (almost a Muggle equivalent of the Hog's Head in Hogsmede.) It was always dark in there except for the faint bluish glows from over each pool table, and it had a long front of severely tinted windows looking out onto the street of Catalina. This made it an ideal place to stalk someone, in this case Snape. However, she never liked to be in there more than she could avoid; the man behind the refreshments counter was Arab and always glared at her Caucasian whiteness. (a/n: No, I'm not racist, I'm intimating that the man behind the counter was!) In fact, even now he was doing so. Just as Snape began to cross the street to Norm's Burgers, without a word, Cherry gathered her pencil and paper under her arm and scurried out of there like a mice from a cat. The door shut swiftly and softly behind her. Ooh, that place did give her the creeps!

Anyhow, if you never read 'A Trivial Delay on the Way to Starbucks,' you may not know why this teenager with long dirty blonde hair (today not done up like Princess Lea's; it's just down, flowing over her shoulders) blue eyes (that she considered observant yet dreamy) and beautiful wizard's robes (although she herself is completely Muggle) is stalking Snape. Well, quite simply, that was all she lived for. You see, she is the narrator/authoress/ultimate controller of destiny in this world she has created on paper for you to explore. She can control whomever and whatever she wants. She has the ultimate power over everything, like Bruce Almighty. Combine that with an insane adoration of Snape, and you get…a dangerous fiend who will stop at nothing to make the subject of her affection alternately suffer and be blessed just because she likes to exercise her power over him. So it was her who conjured up out of nowhere the rogue who forced Snape with "Ol' Betsy" to go buy him a hamburger. And now she was eager, as she quickly ran across the street after Snape, though the 'walk' sign had shifted to 'don't walk', agilely defying the laws of nature and dodging every car that came her way, to see what she could do with him next.

Snape pushed open the front door of Norm's, Cherry the invisible at his heels. He was instantly accosted by the greasy smell of melting cheese, thousand island dressing, peppers, and, of course, charbroiled beef. It was nauseating to him almost.

He stepped up to the counter, avoiding looking at the faded pictures of gyros, chicken salad, and sandwiches, so damaged by the sun as to be unappetizing. Behind the counter was the grill, on which were sizzling several patties, and the fryer, which had two large metal frying baskets. An aging lady with a demeanor of one much tired of her job demanded to know his order.

"One burger with chips and a soda," Snape said begrudgingly.

"Chips?" the lady asked.

"Erm…well, you people over here call them French fries."

"Oh. I see. So you're from Britain, then?"

"Yes." Snape didn't like the way the lady was looking at him. He handed over the money quickly, took the receipt, and went to sit down at one of the vacant tables. Cherry very evilly sat down at the same table on the other side of the booth and busied herself for a few moments with switching the salt in the salt jar to sugar and the pepper in the pepper shaker to dirt. Someone would soon discover her mischief accidentally, but not in this story.

When the number on his receipt was called, Snape hurried up to the counter, snatched up the paper bag already beginning to show signs of grease leaking through, and hurried out the door again. Cherry took a second to slip a quarter into one of the toy 'fashion' ring dispensers conveniently placed by the door (this was NOT, actually, Cherry's doing; they have always been there) and collect her purchase, a plastic ring, orange and shaped like a heart, with cherries painted on it. (a/n: Score!) Then she scooted away after Severus back across the street, not forgetting her pen and paper.

Snape got across the street without mishap, but, when he got to the corner where he had left the odd man, he was confronted by the fact that the man had disappeared (Cherry's doing entirely, as you might guess!) Puzzled, he looked around. Finally, with a shrug, he decided that he wasn't going to come back again, and he set off down the street again, looking for a trash can to dispose of the perfectly good burger, fries, and drink. However, Cherry made the burger smell amazingly appetizing and the fries amazingly succulent, so Snape didn't make it much further than the shoe shop on the other side of Catalina before he decided to have lunch and then proceed on his way. So he paused and leaned languidly against a wall under the overhang of the shoe store and began to eat the burger.

Because he had never had a hamburger before, only heard of them, and because Cherry made the burger amazingly delicious with a stroke of her pen, Snape fell in love with the food. The fries were very delicious too, because Cherry and Norm's made them so, but they were not to compare with the hamburger.

Finally, Snape had finished the hamburger, and he desperately wanted more. He raced back across the intersection to the other corner where Norm's was and barged into the small restaurant again. Cherry followed, a grin on her face.

This time, though, when he got to the counter to place his order for three more hamburgers, he was greeted not by the lady with the funny look, but by….a panda. And not just what you're thinking I know, a guy in a panda suit. No indeed, this was a real panda. Chewing on a piece of bamboo. This was obviously the work of the demonic maniac Cherry. However, Snape never even knew she existed, so instead he stared at the panda in surprise. Seeing as there were (strangely) no Muggles in sight, Severus tried to transform it back into the lady. He really wanted those hamburgers. However, when he tried, the panda jumped up, grabbed a karaoke from nowhere, and began to sing in a high-pitched squeaky voice that reminded Snape of Professor Flitwick back home.

_"Old Godzilla was hopping around_

_Tokyo__ City__ like a big playground_

_When suddenly Batman burst from the shade_

_And hit Godzilla with a Batgrenade_

_Godzilla got pissed and began to attack_

_But didn't expect to be blocked by Shaq_

_Who proceeded to open up a can of Shaq Fu_

_When Aaron Carter came out of the blue_

_And he started beating up Shaquille O'Neal_

_Then they both got flattened by the Batmobile_

_But before it could make it back to the Batcave_

_Abraham Lincoln popped out of his grave_

_And took an AK47 out from under his hat_

_And blew Batman away with a rat-a-tat-tat_

_But he ran out of bullets and he ran away_

_Because Optimus Prime came to save the day_

_This is the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny_

_Good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see_

_And only one will survive, I wonder who it will be_

_This is the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny"_

The dancing panda would have gone on and on with the entire rest of the song if Cherry hadn't made it stop as abruptly as it begun and set it to flipping hamburgers like any civilized person would. Snape, during all this, stared in disbelief. When the panda finally ended its song and dance number, Snape was forced to open his mouth and say: "OMG that was SOOOOOOOOOOO my most favorite song EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do it again, do it again!!!" Of course he was most surprised when he realized he had said that. And not just like in a normal tone of voice, either; he had said that in a really, REALLY high pitched squeaky preppy fangirl-like voice. He grabbed his throat, murmured to himself, then instantly forgot about the hamburgers that the panda was cooking for him and ran out of the restaurant. As he raced through the parking lot outside, a green puppy from out of nowhere began to playfully attack his ankles. It might have been an alien dog; I have no idea. Anyhow, he ran off, scared for his life, from both the panda who sang like Flitwick and the alien green dog. Cherry followed him, pleased to have made this day so memorable for her most favorite wizard ever. She couldn't wait until next time. ----------------- Thanks for reading! Please rate and review like the good little readers that you are!!! 


	3. Chapter 3

Just Like Me and Mr. Tighe

DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, etc. J.K.R. does. And I don't own any of the stores or other locations in this story; they really exist. However, I did create Cherry. That's me. Heh, I understand it took a rocket scientist's brain to comprehend that, but that's ok.

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The sun shone in languid tones over the dusty rolling hills of Fullerton, California, a small suburb of Los Angeles. The scarce amount of ever-dry grass, which hugged the sides of the hill like hair on a scalp, glistened brightly back, giving one the sense that it was autumn or late summer when, in reality, it was still barely April. Birds twitted here and there. The lone rattling of a rattlesnake echoed through the silent whispering breezes. The same breezes shook the dead gold weeds and grass, making them laugh and rub against one another in a quiet chorus. A turkey vulture circled silently above, impassively hovering almost without even moving its wings. One could see its bright head from the ground if it came close enough. Near the base of the hill was a clump of trees that looked like eucalyptus but probably weren't. Even further than that was a busy road, with cars bustling along it like little shiny ants. They were very oblivious to the serenity just seventy-five feet above them. The road melted away into the beyond city, which was blended together to barely look like a few smudges of paint. The sky was clear and blue, with a faint haze towards the west. And sitting there, on top of the hill, taking all of this in with his superior gaze, was a man.

This man was not your average cropped-brown-haired man with a nondescript face and a medium stature. His coal-like black hair was long and went past his shoulders. It seemed greasy enough, even at a glance, to oil a frying pan with, though certainly that would be highly unsanitary. He had a large nose much shaped like the beak of the aforementioned turkey vulture. His eyes were black as night and seemed not to reflect the sunlight that shone on them; rather they seemed to absorb every fragment of light that touched them. His skin, even though he had been on business in California for months now, remained every bit as pale and sallow as when he had first apparated here from his native country of England. And even as he sat crouched up, his knees folded almost to his chest as he leaned against a large granite boulder, one could see that he was quite skinny and tall. The clothes he wore were slightly bizarre for the picture, being a long-sleeved black sweater, once immaculate but now dusty black leather shoes, and pressed black trousers. Before you start to think now about who this possibly could be, let me tell you; it was Severus Snape, our favorite Death Eater.

On top of this same rock, though Snape never knew it, was a teenage girl. She was a dirty-blonde with hair just a few inches past shoulder length, sad blue eyes, and a short stature. Her clothes were beautiful, floating robes in the wizard style, dark indigo today with a hint of turquoise here and there in the embroidery. Shrouded in her cloak of invisibility that she created with her stupendous powers as the narrator/writer/person, this girl sat, a notebook and pen in hand. Her name was Cherry. Her only aims in life were to get into U.C. Berkley so that she could become an English Professor, practice her music until she died, and stalk Snape, writing about him and recording his every move whenever she had the opportunity to be with him. Despite the fact that they normally lived in alternate universes (his being fictional, hers being real) she had brought them together, or as close to it as possible, via her writing. But he didn't know that she wrote about them; much less that she even existed. And she wasn't about to let him know anytime soon. But that's enough of the setting. Let's get back to the main story.

Ahem. So, anyhow, Snape was sitting there, peacefully on the hill, minding his own business and thinking about his life and what a mess it was in. Suddenly, three figures, swathed in all black with masks snuck from behind the other side of the boulder. One was short and brandished a pair of numchuks, twirling them with a flourish. The second, also short, held a ninja genuine samurai sword. The third, who was quite tall, had a yardstick. We don't know why this ninja had a yardstick, but then, I suppose this will be explained by the end of the story. Anyhow, Snape didn't see these ninjas. At least, he didn't until the tall one grabbed him by the hair (fortunately the ninja was gloved).

"Hey! What the bloody h-ll--" Snape exclaimed, startled out of his reverie. He was cut off, though, by a handkerchief being inserted roughly in his mouth before he could say anything else. Silently, the ninjas then proceeded to bind him up with a length of cord they had brought, as Snape ejaculated to the world. His voice was too muffled to discern exactly what he was saying, though. The ninjas did their job quickly and effectively. They seemed to be taking the utmost care in preventing Snape's escape from them. One of the ninjas, the one with the numchuks, was even smart enough to take his wand, which was barely protruding from his pocket. Snape protested even louder at this, but soon he fell back in desperation. They weren't about to listen to him. Instead they were picking him up and carrying him like he was a log or some other inanimate object.

"Well," Snape mused as optimistically as he could, "At least they aren't killing me…yet."

………….

Hours before the escapade with Snape and the anonymous ninjas, Mr. Tighe was in his classroom, instructing his honors class by doing problems from their book on the board. He was a sparse man of about forty to fifty, with owlike glasses and thick gray hair. He was wearing nice trousers and a plaid shirt. All of a sudden, he stumbled across a part of the problem where he had to reduce a fraction! Oh horrors! He seized a yardstick from its convenient place by his desk and stood up. (I bet you weren't expecting the yardstick to come back into play so quickly, did you? Muahah…)

"Remember," Mr. Tighe said to his class, "Whenever we reduce fractions, we're going to be like ninja warriors." He swooshed the ruler around ominously. "So two hundred and seven over twenty three reduces to…" (swoosh swoosh)

There was much scribbling of pens and scratching at calculators for a moment. Then, someone said: "Nine!" and the rest of the class echoed

"Nine!"

"Nine!"

"Nine!"

"Exactly," Mr. Tighe said, sitting down again at his desk, putting his ruler meticulously back where he had gotten it. And he went on with the problem.

Later, once the school day was concluded and the kids, screaming like evil maniacs, ran out the door, Mr. Tighe was getting ready to leave his classroom. As he was looking for his car keys, his eye fell on the yardstick. He picked up the ruler, caressing it softly. He thought of all the dreams of his that he could have fulfilled if he was a ninja warrior who worked for the CIA. He had once had the chance to do that, in his youth. He was, in fact, employed officially by the CIA! However, the day he was going out on his first mission, his mom told him to go do the laundry before he left. Because he didn't EVER talk back to his mother, he did the laundry, and he was late, and his ninja buddies left before he got there. Later the chief of all the CIA-employed ninjas forced him to forfeit the position he had always coveted. Tighe, disheartened by the experience, gave up all hope of doing anything fun with his life and went to college. There he got a degree in biology and went to teach kids at public schools. His life had been utterly boring and placid ever since. He only dreamt about his almost-ninja days. However, when he was at home, alone, still sometimes he would (he admitted shamefacedly) pretend that he was a ninja warrior, saving the world and being cool.

A knock startled him from his musings. "Come in," he called to whomever was out there, grasping his yardstick firmly lest it be a foe.

Actually, though, it was just one of his students. Cherry, her name was. And she had a friend whom Mr. Tighe had never met before with her. The friend was about her height, with blonde hair cut short, animated brown eyes, and lots of eyeliner around them. She wore jeans and a t-shirt

"Hey Cherry," Mr. Tighe said, putting the ruler away quickly.

"Hey Mr. Tighe," Cherry said. She gestured to her friend. "This is my friend Lauren Goi," she announced simply.

Mr. Tighe nodded. "Ah. I see. Hello."

"Hello," Lauren nodded back.

There was a brief silence.

"Well," began Cherry, "Mr. Tighe, I was wondering…have you ever considered being a ninja?"

Mr. Tighe made a shifty look at the ruler before replying, "No. Why?"

"Well," Cherry said, not believing him for a minute, "I was wondering if you would be interested in heading a small ninja clan."

"A ninja clan?"

"Yeah. It would just be me, Lauren, and you."

"Why me?"

"Because I thought you liked ninjas. However, if you don't…" she broke off.

Mr. Tighe shook his head. "Wait. I never said I never liked ninjas. Go on," he said.

Cherry smiled feebly. "Well, that's great. Then let's have our first meeting, right now."

"Can I ask you something though, Cherry?" Mr. Tighe asked.

"Sure."

"Will we need weapons, if we're going to be ninjas?"

"Like…yeah," Lauren put in. "We've already got some." She proceeded to get out some plastic ninja swords from her bag, and she placed them in display on the desk.

Mr. Tighe shook his head. "That will never work," he said. "We need real weapons." And he went to his desk, dug through it a few minutes, then came up with a pair of real numchuks and a real samurai sword.

"Oh my gosh this is awesome!" Lauren exclaimed as Mr. Tighe pressed the sword's handle into her hand.

"Go on, give it a flick," Mr. Tighe said encouragingly, sounding astoundingly like Olivander from Harry Potter.

Lauren then went on to practice stabbing the wall.

Mr. Tighe also gave Cherry the pair of numchuks. "How do you use these?" Cherry asked when he presented them to her.

"I don't have the slightest idea," the math teacher replied, "But they sure look cool."

"Yup," Cherry agreed, and threw one of the numchuks at a desk. But then she turned back to Mr. Tighe. "But what will your weapon be?" she asked of him.

Mr. Tighe picked up his yardstick fondly. "This will do just fine," he said, his eyes gleaming behind his shiny glasses.

……………………….

Snape was feeling very nervous. And he didn't, he told himself, like feeling nervous. Possibly because whenever he felt nervous, he had every reason to be so, because he was not normally a very nervous man. He again appraised his situation.

He was in a dark room, a classroom, or so he judged, from the number of desks and textbooks he could see, even in the dim light, were stacked in the corner. However, he heard the sound of running water, smelt the pungent sweetness of incense, and felt the cords binding him to the chair tightly. He also saw, in front of him, on bamboo mats, his three kidnappers, calmly doing yoga and eating take-out Chinese food they had bought on the way here. The smells of the food was greasy but mouthwatering, reminding Snape of hamburgers from Norm's...(a/n: see A Second Trivial Delay)

Suddenly, short-numchuk ninja got up from doing his/her stretches and proceeded to get out a fourth plate and dish out more Chinese food. With a clean fork, he/she approached Severus and began to spoon-feed him, like a baby. Well, if he was their prisoner, at least they were treating him moderately well!

The short-numchuk ninja suddenly motioned for short-samurai-sword ninja to come up and finish giving Severus his lunch. Then short-numchuk walked to one of the desks, picked up a blue book and a pen, and started to write. Severus was puzzled; short-numchuk had been doing this several times since they had captured him. Was he/she keeping a diary of all that he did? Or was the ninja simply bored?

After Severus had finished as much as he could handle, the ninjas (all three of them) got up and started doing various things. Tall-yardstick started to light small fires in four cast-iron bowls right around Severus. It was rather unnerving to him because the flames licked the air just inches away from his feet. One was placed in front of him, one was placed on either side of the chair, and the last was placed behind him.

The short-sword ninja got out a large bag of plain white jasmine rice and placed it in Severus' lap. This was even odder than the fires in the bowls.

The short-numchuks ninja finished writing whatever it was that they were writing and began to open all the windows. Through them, Severus could see that the sun was going down; it was probably about six or seven o'clock in the evening. A cool ocean breeze wafted through them and Severus felt a bit chilly even with the fires roaring around him.

And then began the weirdest part of all. Short-sword ninja got a cd player out of nowhere and a relaxing sort of Asian meditation music turned on, flooding the room with its rhythmic chimes and chants. Then the three ninjas surrounded Severus, closed their eyes, and joined hands. They began to circle him in time to the slow music. The whole thing was very disturbing, even for a wizard, who should have been used to such things.

A pattering started to occur when Tall-yardstick brushed against the bag of jasmine rice. Snape looked down to see that there was a hole in the bag. The rice was trickling out all over his lap and onto the floor.

"The rice is spilling," he tried to say, but they had replaced the gag in his mouth after feeding him, so he only made an uncomfortable sort of "Umph," noise.

"The rice is spilling," said short-sword suddenly, not breaking the trance. Severus was surprised to discover that the voice was that…of a girl's!

"I observed as much." This was short-numchuk. Again, Snape was startled to hear a young feminine teenager's voice from behind the ninja mask.

They continued to circle. Suddenly, from the back depths of the room came a loud, digitalized, rocked-up version of the Indiana Jones Theme.

"Darn. That's mine," muttered short-nunchuk, breaking away from the circle and dashing to wherever the sound came from. Snape realized that it must be one of those Muggle contraptions, a cell phone. Since two people were too few to hold hands and circle around Snape, the other two ceased to do so, watching short-nunckuk ninja.

"I like your ringtone," tall-yardstick ninja said. Snape, who had been half-expecting this ninja to be female too, was somewhat taken aback by the fact that it was the voice of a middle-aged man.

"Thanks," short-nunchuk said, flipping open her phone. "Hello?" short-nunchuk said to whomever she was talking to, hurrying over to one of the windows. She hopped out into the courtyard, that Snape assumed was there, in order to have a private conversation.

At this precise moment, the door swung open to reveal…a short little lady with curly hair, tinted eyeglasses and a frock coat. She seemed just as startled to see the ninjas and Snape tied up as they did to see her.

"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed, staring.

Tall-yardstick hurriedly threw off his black mask and ninja suit, revealing the khakis and plaid shirt of…(amazingly) Mr. Tighe.

"Yes, Yvonne?" he said hurriedly to the Principal of the school.

"What exactly are you doing? Is that a student?" (She gestured to the short-sword ninja.)

"Um…well, no." The man pulled the mask off of short-sword, revealing a girl with short blonde hair and lots of dramatic eyeliner. "This is Lauren, the friend of one of my students."

"Does she go to this school?" Yvonne the Principal approached the girl, who looked at her.

"No, I don't" the girl said irritably.

"Ah then," Yvonne smiled, then turned to Snape. "And you would be…" She paused.

Lauren quickly removed his gag. Severus picked up the hint. "Severus Snape, madam."

"Ah," the little lady said again. Finally, smiling, she said, "Tighe, I'm not going to ask what's been going on here, but I will assume the best and be done with the situation. I want you out of here in ten minutes. This never happened, do you understand, this NEVER HAPPENED." With that, the principal of the school marched out the door and down the hall.

Mr. Tighe sighed. "All right then, let's untie him." And Lauren simplified the matter by slicing the bonds with her sword.

"What the devil was this all about?" Snape demanded when he was finally free.

"You were sitting on OUR HILL," Lauren said pointedly. She sounded quite serious, but the words she said sounded as though they came from the mouth of a six year old. Severus assumed that he had just been captured by a bunch of maniacs.

"Very well," he said coldly, glaring at Lauren and Mr. Tighe. "Thank you so much for dinner and such. I had a lovely evening." Though his words were kind, the glare intimated his sarcasm. With a haughty look of disdain, he stalked out of the room and away.

Cherry, alias short-numchuk, came back in though the window. "Hey!" Snape heard her exclaim as he went down the hallway, "Where'd Snape go?"

It never occurred to Snape that he had never mentioned his name in her presence.

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Thanks for reading! Please rate and review!


	4. Chapter 4

They Signify the Beginning of the End

DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, etc. J.K.R. does. And I don't own any of the stores or other locations in this story; they really exist. However, I did create Cherry. That's me. Heh, I understand it took a rocket scientist's brain to comprehend that, but that's ok. Jessica and Mrs. Ford are real people too. Wow.

……………………………

The day was a dark one in usually sunny California. The sky was devoid of all color, saturated in the dense, puffy gray clouds that stick ominously to the hemisphere. The day was windy, and everyone who steps out into the forceful breeze instantly was chilled to the bone by the gusts. The palm trees blew precariously. Anyone who was not familiar with the habits of palm trees might fear that the slender, towering trees might snap in half; however, any native to southern California was aware of the fact that despite their shallow roots, palm trees were meant to take on wind. So people unworriedly hurried beneath their shadows, uncaring about anything except their destination. There were no birds out, and a stray dog and a few squirrels were the only non-human critters in sight. Even the humans, however, raced wherever they were going as quickly as possible to avoid getting colder. The air was frigid and moist, even in places sheltered from the wind. It was probably going to rain later; indeed, many people already carried fold-up umbrellas at their sides lest a downpour startle them in the middle of their morning. And anyhow, among all this, a man walked briskly down the street.

This was not just any man. His nose, curved and haughty, angled sharply down somewhere in the middle of it, and makes a steep slope downwards. His eyes were black as a raven covered in coal dust down an abandoned mine shaft on Pluto, if that gives you any sort of idea. His hands, though jammed in his pockets, were long and pallid, and were so pale and sallow as almost to have a tinge of sickly yellow color to them. His nails were clean and immaculately trimmed, however. The clothes he wore were black as his eyes, and were quite simple; a black turtleneck sweater, black pressed and starched trousers, and black polished shoes, slightly scuffed with the adobe mud characteristic of California. His hair was black also, and it was long and flowing. Thanks to the wind, it now whips wildly behind his head, giving him the appearance of someone…well…erm…someone caught in a storm. And anyhow, his brow was high and proud, and his gaze calculating and cold. His jaw was set firmly, as though he were grinding his teeth against the storm, but other than that, he seems completely and utterly composed. Of course, you know who this was. It was Severus Snape, our favorite Death Eater of all time.

He was walking down the street of Carnegie Avenue, a winding, narrow street that was very beautiful, nevertheless. The street was lined with the aforementioned palm trees, which swayed uncertainly above him. Snape, not a native of California, obviously, was somewhat perturbed by this incessant leaning and straightening and leaning again. However, the idea was not on his top list of concerns. He was a full grown wizard, after all, and a clever one to boot; he was perfectly capable of dealing with falling trees. Instead, other things occupy his mind that we have no right to know, concerning his work for the Order of the Phoenix. (Yes, he was a spy on their side.)

And of course, who should show up but our evil little demonic Narrator/authoress…Cherry. She was a short teenager, about sixteen or seventeen it seems, with melancholy blue eyes, a barely up-turned nose located on a round face, and long blonde hair flowing over her shoulders. As usual, she was donned in Witch attire, this time in deep dark green, almost black, robes. She carried a blue notebook under her arm and a pen behind her ear as she rode a zebra, which her awesome narrator skills came up with, bareback. No one notices this odd sight either, thanks to Cherry's awesome narrator skills once again. She was…dun dun dun! …invisible. Suddenly, the zebra stumbled. Cherry screamed slightly, since she was startled. Snape heard them somehow, even though they were twenty feet behind him and the wind should have impeded the sound waves. He spun around. However, of course, he saw nothing. Then, little knowing that a Muggle girl on a zebra was following him, Snape turned around again and headed on down the avenue again.

Cherry continues to keep a safe distance away from Snape, following him as he passed street after street, going for what felt like hours and hours but was, in reality, only three-quarters of a mile. Finally, Carnegie Ave. ceased to be lined with residential homes and a school merged into view, barely cropping up above the palms. Snape nodded to no one in particular, and approached the school's tall blue entry door. Cherry, forced to abandon her ride, dropped down off the animal's back, patted it on the nose, and pursued Snape.

They got through the entry gate via an intercom and headed to the sign marked 'OFFICE' that hung conveniently over a closed door. Snape, with a sigh, grasped the metal knob of the door and pulled it open. Instantly, Snape (and Cherry, who stood not a meter away from him) were hit by a thick stuffy blast of air from within the office, over-warm and smelling deliciously like buttered toast. Snape, who has not lunched yet, swallows saliva, and goes in. Cherry remained in the hall.

Snape had some minor affair to smooth over there at the school. It was of little importance to the story, so I shall pass over it. In the end, no one had died, no one was any the worse for the meeting between the American Muggles and the British Wizard, and Snape stepped out, leaving their warm bright office for the cold dim halls once again. Cherry, in the meantime, had been musing over whether to buy Butterfingers or Reese's Pieces from the vending machine right in front of the door. Ah, decisions, decisions…ahem. Anyhow, just as Cherry was scooping up a Butterfinger from the tray of the machine and Snape was making his smooth getaway, the door to the office opened. A buxom typewriter-secretary-lady stood there, waving a pink slip of paper in her hand.

"Oh," she called after Snape. "Mr. Snape?"

"Yes?" queried the potions master warily.

"Would you take this to Room 6? It's right on your way out, and you just walk in there and give it to the teacher."

"Sure," Snape said, somewhat civilly, and he stepped back to retrieve the note from her hand.

"Thanks," the lady said, and she ducked back into the office again. Snape shook his head.

"Too lazy to go herself, I expect," Snape muttered under his breath as he strode down the hallway determinedly, Cherry pattering behind as fast as she could. "These Americans all were like that…grossly overweight…terribly rude…spoiled brats…" Snape muttered, in the company of a lot of other things that should not be put down on paper. Well, he DID think he was alone, after all!

Anyhow, Snape soon found Room 6, and it was nowhere near on his way out. In fact, he had to make a full detour around the school in order to get there. However, he finally did manage it, and, angrily, he threw open the door of the classroom. Cherry slid in through the small space between him and the doorjamb.

Inside, a normal-looking male teacher stood, giving the lesson. He was, when Snape opened the door, pointing to some purple-ink writing on his whiteboard and asking his class, "…And why do you place a comma there?"

A girl with amazingly curly brown hair raised her hand as Snape walked complacently across the room to hand the paper to the teacher. "Jessica," the teacher said, gesturing towards the student.

The so-called Jessica said solemnly, "They signify the beginning of the end."

Snape was struck suddenly by these words. As simple as they were, they seemed to have a deeper meaning than they did at first glance. He stopped thinking when, suddenly, he realized he had paused in walking with his foot in midair, halfway across the room. Everyone was staring at him. Quickly, acting brisk to cover his embarrassment, Snape opened his mouth to say something. However, he realized then that no one was staring at him, but at the board behind him. This included the teacher. Snape slowly turned around.

A green whiteboard marker was floating eerily above the board. It made a quick stroke, then another, and another, and another, and another. It was writing, "THEY SIGNIFY THE BEGINNING OF THE END!" in all capital letters. Snape looked around to see who was doing what he believed to be utter magic. But then he remembered; this was a MUGGLE class, not a MAGICAL class. So that meant that he shouldn't be seeing this...right? He reached out to try and grab whatever it was holding the chalk up, thinking it was probably a hoax of some sort. Which it was, of course. Cherry was behind this madness, and she was conducting it safely from another corner of the room altogether with her awesome narrator skills. However, Snape didn't even know she existed, so when he assumed that it was someone under an invisibility cloak or some other invisibility device, he was most perturbed. Quickly, he threw the paper on the teacher's desk and ran out of the classroom, followed immediately by half the class. The teacher turned to the phone to dial 911, which was the best thing the poor bewildered man could think of to do in this situation, and Cherry dashed out too.

Snape hurried all the way out of the school with the air of someone who knew what he was doing and where he was going. Finally, when he was safely beyond the school grounds, he sighed and slowed down to his normal pace. He had been really creeped out at the occurrence. Cherry caught up with him in a few moments, after retrieving her zebra.

Cherry decided then that it was time to make chaos for her favorite book character. With a swish of her pen, the sky grew dark as black, as suddenly as an unwatched pot boils. Only the sliver of a moon showed through the dark. Snape, at this, looked up curiously. What was this? The stars were beginning to come out. But they did not form their normal constellations; oh no. Instead, it seemed as though...they were forming letters in a giant marquee across the sky. Snape blinked. Was he imagining this? He pinched his arm. Ow! No, he was not imagining this. The stars started to scroll over the sky over and over and over, in the same letter formation. Snape closed his eyes, opened them again, and re-read the message: "THIS SIGNIFIES THE BEGINNING OF THE END!"

From the sky then, a flaming funnel descended. It was like a tornado, only instead of being made of winds, it was made of fire. The fire spun around and around, then it landed on a piece of land. Snape heard the rushing of the flames, which was almost like running water or escaping gas from a leak. The flames then proceeded to come…his way. Snape slipped his hand in his pocket to find his wand. Oh dear Merlin, horror of horrors! His wand wasn't there! Panic stricken, (for Snape was not very well-versed in wandless magic) Snape ran. He didn't care where he ran, just anywhere that was away from the flaming funnel of impending doom.

In the distance, though, he could see something else falling from the sky. It seemed, as far as he could make out, to be another tornado, this one of a liquid form. Snape looked from one funnel of doom to the other. Finally, the water funnel landed on earth and began to head slowly in the direction of Snape and the funnel of fire. Snape, in that case, ran the only other way that was not blocked either by a school, a tornado of fire, or a tornado of water.

As he ran, Snape suddenly realized something. Why wasn't he hearing any screaming? He stopped short at the reflection. Surely, if this were all real, he would be hearing screaming. But as he looked around, he saw no people. Just inanimate plants, plants, and more plants adorned the area he was in. He had, or so it seemed, unconsciously wandered into a forest as dense as those of the dinosaur ages. He stepped back in awe, and stumbled into a giant sago palm. Decidedly, that had not been there a second ago. Unless, of course, all this was merely a hallucination and he was going mad. Snape shivered. Was he mad? He had no idea. He noticed that the fire and water tornadoes were still closing in on him threateningly. Snape impulsively threw himself down on the ground and closed his eyes. He didn't even hope to live.

…………………

Snape awoke to seeing all pink. This was odd. He blinked. The pink materialized into a ceiling. Snape rubbed his eyes and lifted his head to better see where he was. The sheets crinkled uncomfortably beneath him. Snape breathed in the clean, starched scent of them happily. He did like fresh linen. He looked about at his surroundings. He could see, to his left, a wall. To his right was also a wall, but it had a counter with clear shiny jars of cotton balls, astringent pads, and depression sticks on it. In front of him was another wall, bearing several hooks with various Muggle doctor supplies. It seemed as though he was trapped in a doorless Muggle hospital room. How bizarre.

A slight giggle emitted from beneath the bed. Snape looked down. He could see nothing, but Cherry was crouched there in bloodstained robes. We shall learn the significance of these bloodstained robes some other time. Anyhow, Snape, seeing nothing but still wary, sat up again. He was met by the sight of a fat matronly woman in a tight nurses' uniform waddling up to him from nowhere with a large spoon and a clear bottle of a pungent green fluid in her hand.

"Good morning," she said briskly, pouring out an ample dose of the medicine that smelled of foul eggs. Snape somehow knew, instinctively, that this medicine was not good medicine.

"No, thanks, I'm quite fine," Snape said, proceeding to try to wriggle deeper beneath the covers.

At this, however, the smiling woman growled low and whispered hoarsely, "Are you so sure?"

Snape nodded. He didn't like the tone the woman was using. "Thanks, I'll just be going now," he said, throwing back the covers and sitting up. With this, however, the matron swallowed all of the medicine in one gulp. Snape stared in disbelief as the matron morphed into a large, foaming basilisk, with scales as slimy as an algae-ridden pond, teeth sharper than a razors, and breath fouler than a pile of elephant dung.

Snape gasped aloud. That was especially weird. It was only upon rare occasions such as this that Snape ever displayed any of the softer emotions of surprise, happiness, or sadness. Right now, he was definitely surprised. "What?" he mumbled under his breath, not being able to comprehend the fact that this was indeed really happening.

The matron-basilisk hissed threateningly in a French accent. "Thisssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssignigiesssssssssssss ze

beginninggggggggggggg of ze endddddddddd…"

Snape put his hands to his ears. Those words! Those haunting words! Those words that he had merely heard this morning in a Muggle school! They were not leaving him alone! Snape wanted to scream.

The matron-basilisk swiped her long angry jaws at him in an attempt to fasten Snape in their grasp. Seeing his only alternative was to flee, and, since he had noticed a convenient door in the wall behind him that he had missed before, Snape jumped off the bed.

He fully expected to hit the floor split seconds later. However, when he slipped out of the bed, he never stopped falling. At first, it took him a second to surmise his situation, and just before it landed out of reach, he managed to grab the blanket from off the bed. The basilisk-matron watched and writhed angrily above him as he fell quickly…down, down, down. He felt somewhat as though he were Alice, falling down the rabbit-hole. But then, that was an impossible book, written by a Muggle. How scary that this should indeed be happening to him right now…

He just kept on falling, with no end in sight. Eventually, even the hospital room had disappeared from his sight above him, reduced to the size of a mere star in the sky. That was when the _things_ started to appear around him.

First, it was but a feather. The little spot of green plumage floated down beside him, somewhat faster, which was odd if one took into consideration Galileo's experiments. But this was the least of Snape's worries. The feather landed on his large nose, making it tickle. Snape attempted to brush it off with his hand, but it held onto his nose. Snape tried to brush it off more vigorously, and then noticed a pen, floating down as the feather had. Snape reached out with his hand and caught it. However, when he tried to change it from one hand to the next, it would not budge from where it had landed. Snape was scared; here he had a feather stuck on his nose, and a pen stuck on his hand. What could be any more troublesome?

A giant dictionary. This came catapulting down out of nowhere at a tremendous speed, and it hit Snape square in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. Of course, like the pen and the feather, when he tried to move the dictionary, it would not budge. Snape realized, gasping, that he mustn't touch anything else, or it too would stick to him with its invisible glue. Though he had no idea why this was happening. It was almost a nightmare, only in real life.

He almost died when he saw a plasma screen TV coming at him, full speed ahead. However, when it hit him on the head, although it was heavy, he wasn't at all hurt. Neither was the TV. So although this was bizarre to say the least of it, the whole thing was at least bearable.

Suddenly, the feather still on his nose disappeared without a trace. As it did so, Snape heard a booming voice in his ear:

"THIS SIG-" But it stopped.

Snape wondered.

The pen disappeared from his hand.

Again, the booming voice froze his blood and blasted his ears:

"-NIFIES THE-"

The dictionary disappeared.

"BEGINNING"

The TV disappeared.

"OF THE END!"

Snape screamed. He thrashed frantically, looking for whomever was saying this.

"WHO ARE YOU!" screamed the man that had been known of in his own time as Severus Snape (the cold-blooded potions teacher). He was now two seconds from going officially 'off his onion.' "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!" Receiving no reply, Snape broke down completely. Indeed, he actually began to cry, right then and there, with the vitality of a little kid.

A soft voice interrupted him. Snape instantly shut up. "Snapey, don't cry!" cooed a voice. Snape blinked and quickly rubbed his eyes on his sleeve. "I'm here to help you."

Snape laughed, his insane side taking over. "Help me? Ha. Like you could."

The soft voice went on, "Yes, I can. And I will. IF you are nice." The voice giggled in a girly fashion.

Snape got a hold on himself…well, pretty much, he did..."Heh, I can be nice if it helps me.'

The voice laughed in a tinkling manner. Snape thought he heard ringing in his ears. "Good," the voice said, and a girl materialized out of nowhere.

No, sorry, this was not our Narrator, Cherry. (She, however, was observing all this silently, not five feet away. Just to let you know that she hasn't abandoned us yet.) This girl was, in fact, someone completely different. (Wow, amazing…)

She was tall, unlike Cherry, with long shining brown hair and dazzling blue eyes. Her face was almost albino white, and she was unmarred by any freckles or birthmarks or anything of the sort. Her long flowing witches' robes fitted her nicely, and were of scarlet silk material.

Snape blinked, trying to make sense of her. She didn't disappear, didn't turn into a basilisk, nothing. She instead extended her hand to him. Snape warily took it in his own, not sure of what she was going to do. She seemed, in his opinion, nice enough, but he didn't think he was going to trust her very soon.

The girl then took a step somehow, even as they were falling through the air. Snape instantly stopped falling. He took a moment to catch his breath, then followed the girl's lead through an arched doorway that the girl had opened in the middle of the air.

Snape instantly found himself immediately outside the school building where he had first experienced the bizarreness. The girl had disappeared as suddenly as she had come. However, the school bell was ringing, and seconds later hyper teenagers poured out the doors, sweeping him out of their way. He fought against the current, though, and soon he found himself in the semi-abandoned parking lot.

A woman with long gray hair that reached her waist was conducting kids across the bit of sidewalk that intersected with the parking lot entrance. As the kids passed, some of them would say "Bye Mrs. Ford!" or "See you tomorrow Mrs. Ford!" or even, sarcastically, "Thanks for saving our lives Mrs. Ford!" Snape stepped forward, hesitantly, to the woman that everyone addressed as Mrs. Ford.

"Excuse me," he said slowly, sidestepping by inches a blue van launching out of the parking lot.

"Yes, can I help you?" Mrs. Ford asked. She added, "Get out of the street so you don't die."

"Thanks," muttered Snape. "Um," he continued, "Where am I?"

"Are you lost?"

"Somewhat, but-"

"-Bye Mrs. Ford!" a girl with impossibly curly brown hair interrupted as she passed by them.

"Goodbye Jessica," Mrs. Ford said patiently.

Jessica noticed Snape and grinned at him.

Snape fainted. Seriously.

…………

Cherry showed up a second later, got the story as best as she could wheedle out from Mrs. Ford and Jessica, then hurried home to type this up. Upon her completing her narrative, however, she realized that she had completely forgotten about Snape. He's probably still in a dead faint at the crosswalk, with Mrs. Ford who's still making sure the kids don't die. Oh well.

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Thanks for reading! Please rate and review!


	5. Chapter 5

Return of the Green Alien Puppy

DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, etc. J.K.R. does. And I don't own any of the stores or other locations in this story; they really exist. Nor do I own, sadly, Disneyland or anything to do with it. It would be awesome if I did, though. Nor did I create or own Myspace. It's too cool for me to have done that. And anyhow, everyone knows that it's all Tom's fault. Oh yeah, and I didn't dream up Star Trek, nor do I own any part of it whatsoever. I just used the "beam me up, Scotty" line because it was random and somewhat pertinent at the same time. However, I did create Cherry. That's me. Heh, I understand it took a rocket scientist's brain to comprehend that, but that's ok. The alien green dog is mine too. ALL MINE! And Matt and Anthony are real people. I used their names and persons without their permissions. MUAHAHAHAHA! Heck, but I'm showing them this tomorrow, so I don't see why you should care. And so ends my disclaimer.

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The sun was casting a golden, glowing hue over the 'Happiest Place on Earth' in Anaheim, Southern California. The sky was clearer than a glass of ice-cold mountain spring water, and as orange as a drop of sweet fresh honey. Children's laughs resounded across the park, designed and originated by the man yet world renown, Walt Disney. Adults reprimanded their spoiled offspring for scurrying away from them to eagerly embrace the costumed figures who represented their favorite animated movie characters. Babies slept in their strollers or in their tired parent's arms, both parent and child entirely devoid of energy after their exploits of the day. Happy, friendly music boomed from loudspeakers, erupting even through the thickening crowds. Throngs of teenagers, eager to come and forget school for the evening, were lined up at the main gates and slowly trickling in. Families of three to sixteen stuffed themselves inside overpriced restaurants to gorge themselves on dinner. Romantic young couples strolled around with cartons of popcorn or giant turkey legs and lemonade for a quick dinner in between the last few rides of the day. The music seemed to grow more and more repetitive, more and more farcical as the hours wore on. People already were lining up along main street for the daily parade. Sullen litter sweepers, irritated with the way they made a livelihood, angrily scooped trash into their baskets with their lightweight miniature brooms. One of these very sweepers, at a location somewhat near the Teacups in Fantasyland, was vehemently shoving creased, soiled napkins, empty soda cups, and paper wrappers into his collector.

Soon his plastic basket was full to overflowing, and the sweeper stomped, nastily scowling, to a trash bin in an alley behind a restaurant. The alley was dark except for the light of a single lamp-post on the back door of the restaurant, and the music was far dimmer here than it was beyond. The litter sweeper raised up the basket, dumped it carelessly into a large blue dumpster which was supposed to be shut but wasn't, and stalked off in a very depressed manner. As his harsh footsteps died away, a rustling noise roused the relative quiet of the alley.

What was that?

The rustling noise occurred again, deep within the belly of the dumpster, still left open to the mercy of the elements. Slowly, a head emerged from the putrid contents of the dumpster. The head gradually rose, morphing into a body, arms, hands, and legs. Delicately the human figure threw one leg over the side of the dumpster and hoisted itself to the ground.

The figure shook his head to get a plastic straw out of his long dark hair. He was tall, we could see in the dimness of the twilight shadows, and quite thin. His nose, which he pinched uncomfortably hard with his long detailed fingers, was large, protruding, and extraordinarily beaklike. His aforementioned shoulder-length black hair was oily and rancid looking; when it whipped across his wan, sallow face as he shook his head vigorously, it made a disgusting lashing noise reminiscent of rats' tails. The figure then busied himself with brushing his clothes off as well as he could with his bare hands. Even in the poor light about, it was flagrantly evident who this was—our greatest Death-Eater friend, Severus Snape.

Snape shook his head angrily again, like a dog.

"Wet…ugh…" he muttered, running his fingers through his apparently drenched locks. He grimaced as he did so. "…And sticky," he observed, examining his now shiny fingers. He pinched his nose again and peered into the dustbin again. With relief all he saw was a large broken jug of maple syrup dripping amid the junk. He considered himself quite fortunate that that was all it was…

But what in the world was our favorite snarky old potions master doing in this dark corner of Disneyland? And why, pray, was he at such an un-Snapey place as Disneyland in the first place? It would seem as though coming here should be absolute torture to him, yet here he was, hiding in the dustbins as though he were in his own backyard! Well, let us try to answer this question.

Snape looked furtively left, then right, then stepped across the ally to the blank brick wall from him. He began to tap bricks, slowly, one by one. He did not notice a short shadow slipping from behind the dumpster into the nearest door jamb. The shadow belonged to none other than our narrator/authoress/writer person, Cherry. She was a short girl of about sixteen or seventeen, with long, wavy, dirty-blonde hair that went to her waist, melancholy blue eyes that were deep and commiserating, and pale, peach skin slightly wan from too much indoor study and too little outdoor activity. She was donned in dull witchlike robes today, all black with starch-white accents. In her left arm she clutched, close to her chest, a ordinary stiff blue notebook, in which her right hand's pen was furiously composing. That notebook and that pen enabled her to her supreme powers of complete and selfless control of words. If she lost either the notebook or the pen, the universe you are reading about right now should not even exist. However, thanks to her mild amount of ingenuity, and the fact that she yet retains her supplies of domain, this universe that incorporates both reality and fiction does exist.

Anyhow, Cherry was here to stalk Snape, basically. She loved him enormously, despite the fact that the majority of the rest of the world did not, and the only way that she could come in any sort of contact with him was via her own writing. So now she crouched stealthily in the doorjamb, watching Snape intently, and hurriedly writing this very sentence.

Snape, however, noticed neither her nor anything else about him. Instead, he warily finished his trial of tapping on the bricks, and a door in the wall grated open. The noise was scarcely heard over the plethora of music resounding from the end-of-the-day fireworks, which began at that very nanosecond. Even before the door had finished opening, Snape had slipped out of the alley into the ensuing darkness. Cherry waited until he had disappeared from view, and then pursued him with extreme caution.

Snape descended the cold stone stairwell, lit by nothing but a simple 'lumos' charm which emitted from his wand. Old, dead candles of tallow, covered with cobwebs, were stuck and crumbling precariously in rusty cast iron holders on the walls. As Cherry, creeping on tiptoe, accidentally grazed one with her shoulder, it toppled onto the ground with a resounding crack. The candle hit the floor, and the brittle object split cleanly in two. Snape spun around in surprise and alarm. He saw no one, of course, due to Cherry's usual and favorite magical disappearing act she managed with her ultimate skills. Snape's eyes darted nervously, back and forth, inspecting the corridor behind him. Seeing nothing, but still suspicious, he turned back around and hastened further down the stairwell at a quicker pace and a lighter step. Cherry treaded much more carefully from then on herself.

Snape finally reached the bottom of the stairs, Cherry ardently at his heels. A large, heavy pegged oak door covered in cobwebs and cast-iron reinforcements, met him. He gave this a shave-and-a-haircut. No answer came. He paused a moment, then knocked again. This time, a dark hooded figure opened the door.

"Password?" The eerie figure had a raspy voice, and his face was completely hidden behind his cloak.

Snape paused dramatically. "Rubber…ducky," he whispered. In response, the door creaked just a bit further open, barely enough to let Snape through. The door shut just before Cherry could manage to follow, so she had to consent to stooping to the keyhole in order to know what was going on in the room within as opposed to being in there herself.

The room was almost as dark as the corridor outside, save the fact that it was lit by a relatively yellow set of candles in tarnished silver candelabras. The room was large and drafty, but contained no furniture besides a simple wooden desk, no drawers, and a straight-backed wooden chair behind it. In this the figure situated himself. Snape still was unable to see anything of the other's face beyond the veil of dark cloth draping over his face ominously. However, before the other drew them into his lap beneath the desk, he caught a glance of the other's disgustingly hairy, almost pawlike hands. The figure was breathing heavily.

"Severus Snape?" The words floated, cold and uncomfortable in the chilly air.

"Yes, my Lord?" Snape said slowly in a humble reply. The figure gave no answer, merely stared at Snape through eyes the aforementioned man could not see for the dark hood. Snape shifted uncomfortably under their gaze. Cherry resisted the urge to giggle as she sat outside the door, lest they detect her laugh.

They remained in a dark silence for a while. Finally, Snape ventured, "Your voice sounds a bit different today, my Lord."

Cherry snorted in a very unladylike manner. This was one of her bad habits, along with grinding her teeth.

Snape added hurriedly, before the Dark Lord/Hooded Figure/Voldemort-person could become angry, "Merely as a statement of fact, of course."

Voldemort nodded indifferently. "Do you know, Snape, why I have called you here today?"

"No sir," Snape answered truthfully, "Nor am I certain why exactly you have called me to this dank cellar below this barbaric Muggle amusement park as opposed to our usual rendezvous. Not that I am asking for any answers…"

The Dark Lord nodded. "Good. You are better off not asking. You will be a much happier man if you inquire nothing of me."

"I thought as much."

"Well, I am glad to see that you have learned this much from mere observation." Here Voldemort paused. Soon he opened his mouth again. "Well Snape, I have called you here for a reason, as doubtless you inference," he said, drumming his long nails on the desk. Snape nodded respectfully. The figure went on, "However, it may be a reason you little expect."

Snape gulped unnoticeably. "How thrilling."

"Yes, it is, especially for me." A sick grin crept into the Dark Lord's voice.

Snape sensed danger. "I beg your pardon, my Lord," he said slowly, "But are you at all ill?"

"No, Snape. Whatever would make you think that?" countered the Dark Lord.

Snape shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage. "Your voice sounds uncommonly raspy today, that is all."

The Dark Lord stared. "Well, the better to talk to you, my dear Snape," Voldemort said slowly. There was then, a mutual silence. Snape shifted uncomfortably under the boring eyes of the figure seated before him. Suddenly, the Dark Lord lifted his head just a slight angle higher, and Snape was able to see those dreadful, glowing green eyes, though the rest of the man's face was yet in darkness.

"My Lord," Snape stated nervously. "Your eyes appear uncommonly large and dilated, not to mention they are an unusual colour. Are you certain you aren't ill at all? My medical capabilities are limited, but--" However, Voldemort interrupted.

"My eyes are only better to see you with, my dear Snape." His voice was still icy and cold, but, outside, Cherry was having a very hard time restraining her laughter. In her eyes, this scene was becoming very reminiscent of the old fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, when Little Red encounters the wolf masquerading as her grandmother.

But anyhow, Snape nodded, not saying, and not hearing. There did appear to be something wrong with this scene, he decided, he could sense it somehow…the incessant clacking of the other man's fingernails on the desk was becoming intolerable, however. Snape glared closely at the hand that bore them. He realized with a shock that the hands of his master very closely resembled…dog's paws. Bright neon green ones, at that. He wondered why he had not noticed before. Assertively, Snape pointed them out. "Sir," he declared, "Whatever happened to your hands? They never used to be furry and pawlike, as they are now."

At this, though, the Dark Lord threw off his hood, revealing--the lime-green face of an alien dog. Snape backed away as it rasped scathingly, "The better to rip you to shreds, my dear Snape." Then the full-grown alien dog then rose from the desk and slowly advanced towards Snape, wielding its long razor-sharp nails and smiling sickly.

Snape stared a moment in disbelief. "Wait!" he exclaimed suddenly, putting out his hand. "So you are not the Dark Lord?"

"No indeed!" growled the dog, stopping momentarily.

Snape shook his head, trying to clear his brain of confuddlement. "So who are you, then?" He did not remember the dog.

The puppy growled again. "If you will be so kind as to think back a few months," he said, eyes glowing greener with every second, "You will recall the day when you became addicted to hamburgers."

Snape's eyes lit up at the recollection. "My goodness yes!" he sighed contently. "Do I remember!"

The dog went on. "You will remember also, as you fled from the restaurant of Norm's, how you were attacked by a playful animal who wanted some TLC?"

"TLC? A kind of sandwich?"

"No, you're thinking of a BLT. TLC is an abbreviation for Tender Loving Care."

"Oh. I see. Americans…" Snape rolled his eyes.

"Well, do you remember the animal?"

"Hmmmm…wait…oh. Yes. I do." Snape looked at the animal before him with new eyes. This was the green alien puppy from A Trivial Event Number Two, at Norm's! Only now it was grown up! The wheels of Snape's brain were starting to come into place.

Meanwhile, I must note, Cherry was still outside, but becoming very scared for her character. She, at that precise moment, was conjuring back-up from her two best male friends, whom we shall call Matt and Anthony. (Well, Anthony wasn't exactly her friend, since she always called him a freak, but he at least was a guy who knew her.) Matt, a quiet, dark teen with chocolate eyes, greeted her with his cheery smile. Anthony, the freak with curly black hair and a large…erm…_thing_ that used to be a mere pimple on his nose, greeted Cherry with a _very_ exaggerated hug. Cherry commenced her little screaming and slapping act until he let go (he was Tam's boyfriend, after all…haha…) and started to explain the situation to them. They began to plan…

Anyways, so Snape's brain finally registered who this imposter was. "All right then," he said angrily, "Why are you impersonating the Dark Lord? Tell me. Now."

The dog gave a maniacal laugh (and he was soon joined by Anthony, who liked to see Snape tortured…) to the ceiling. "Do you not see yet? I impersonated him only to gain my revenge on you."

"Revenge? Revenge for what, pray?"

("Revenge for what, pray?" mocked Anthony behind the door. This comment was followed by an, "Ow! Cherry that's my foot!" and a "Matt, you dying whale, shut up!")

Neither Snape nor the dog heard, however. The dog went on to explain very frankly. "Because you didn't play with me."

Snape looked disgusted. This was the second time in this series that someone had given him a ridiculous answer like this. "My Merlin! Can't you come up with some better reason than that?"

The dog looked simply evil. "No."

Snape stared in disbelief. "You're joking, right? You're going to kill me for not playing with you?"

"Yes."

"Seriously?"

(Here Cherry screamed, "AH! SIRIUS! SERIOUS! AH!" but for some reason the dog and Snape were especially hard of hearing today, so they did not detect that comment either.)

The dog responded. "Yes."

Snape began to laugh. He was joined in this by everyone outside the door. This time, though, he somehow heard their voices, and he immediately stopped again. Cherry, Matt, and Anthony kept on laughing uncontrolably. Laughing wasn't part of their plan, by the way, they just thought the whole scene was really hilarious. Snape then turned around and quietly tiptoed to the door. The dog was just as puzzled as Snape was, and therefore did not do anything to impede him.

Snape threw open the door to see Anthony leaning against a wall, Matt staring at the ceiling, and Cherry sitting on the floor, and all three of them laughing to high heaven. They all shut up as soon as he saw them, however. Cherry stood up, Anthony straightened himself, and Matt looked at all of them, still kind-of laughing at how ridiculous they were acting. Surprisingly, though, Snape didn't even notice Matt and Anthony. All he saw was Cherry…her eyes, her hair, her robes…he never would have guessed that she was a Muggle by those magnificently designed robes…and then he told himself, "Hey, I think I'm in love." It was as simple as that. Cherry raised her eyebrows at him and he nearly fell over in his ecstasy of her looking at him. In fact, he did physically fall over, on the ground. Cherry was very surprised at this.

Cherry looked to Matt and Anthony for help. She was well versed in what to do with fainted and unconscious ladies from her in-depth knowledge of the Victorian era, but this was a man, and he wasn't quite in a faint, nor unconscious. He was just in a bizarre, uncharacteristic stupor. Unsure of what to do, she looked to her friends for guidance. In unison, as though on cue despite the fact that it was completely spontaneous, Matt and Anthony kicked Snape in the stomach.

Snape sat up with a start, glaring at everyone around him. He _did_ need to learn how to control his emotions better, dear, dear…

The alien green dog stared at the proceedings and decided that he had best slink away from the scene, lest he receive such a vigorous kicking himself. So with a short, muttered, "Beam me up, Scotty," he disappeared completely, never to be heard of in this series again.

Anyhow, so Snape was left with the three teenagers, all three staring at each other uncomfortably. Finally, Cherry decided to make some sense to this unexpected situation. She extended her hand to Snape. "Hi Snape," she said slowly, "I'm Cherry."

Snape gulped to keep his emotions in alignment, and stiffly shook hands with her. "How very nice to meet you. How do you know who I am, though?"

Cherry smiled. "I'm the authoress."

"Which means…"

"That you are in my story."

"WHAT!"

"Yes." Her voice was low and menacing, as though the simple word held more underlying meaning than it did at first glance.

Matt chuckled. Anthony shook his head. "Dying whale…" he muttered.

In reply, Matt kicked his foot with a "Hey!"

Snape, ignoring their antics, looked slightly put out. "I don't understand."

"That's all right. I'll explain in words of one syllable, if you like."

Snape glared at her intimation that he was stupid. "That will not be necessary."

Cherry rolled her eyes. "I'm kidding, you know. _Anyways, _you know all the weird stuff that's been—_ANTHONY!"_

Snape spun around to see what Cherry was mad at. He saw that Anthony was bunny-earring Matt.

"Don't make me separate you two!" Cherry said with mock severity.

"Oh, fine then…" Anthony said, mock ashamed. He shuffled to the stairs and sat down.

Matt shook his head at Anthony. "Anthony, you're weird," he announced to the world.

Snape unabashedly rolled his eyes.

Cherry went on. "Anyhow, as I was saying, you know all the weird stuff that's been happening to you lately?"

Snape suddenly recognized the girl's voice from somewhere. Now where had he heard her before…

"Snape? Are you even listening?"

"Did he die?" Matt asked, almost going off-topic. Cherry laughed in reply, then kicked Snape's shin.

"Apparently so…" she said when the man didn't respond, and she and Matt laughed.

Anthony looked weirded out. "I think I'm missing something…"

Cherry continued laughing hysterically. "Never mind," she gasped.

Snape came out of being spaced-out. "What?" he asked of no one in particular.

Cherry sighed and regained her composure somewhat. "You remember all the weird stuff that's happened to you lately? You know, the kids with their water guns, the whole affair at Norm's, when that math teacher and those two girls dressed up as ninjas captured you, and when you were haunted by those words, _This signifies the beginning of the end?_"

Snape was somewhat scared that this girl should know so much about him. He determined that she must really be his stalker or something. "Yes…I remember those…say, though, are you stalking me or something similar to that?"

All three teenagers began laughing again, though Cherry found herself sinking to the floor, doubled over with her mirth. "My goodness, yes!" she declared finally when she calmed down again. "That's exactly what I've been doing!"

"Yeah," Matt agreed, but he was simply ignored.

Snape looked at this girl with a new light. He was in love with his stalker…life was so cruel, wasn't it?

"By the way," added Cherry, who seemed to be on the verge of spontaneously laughing again, "I am the one who caused all of those to happen!"

"Because you're the authoress? I think I see," Snape said, although he did not in the slightest.

Cherry nodded. "Yes, you are in my stories. And whenever you come to be in my stories, I abuse you because it's hilarious."

"It sure is," Matt nodded. "Like _Snape on Myspace…_"

Snape felt officially weirded out now. They seemed to be constantly divulging in inside jokes that made absolutely no sense to him. However, he nodded as though he understood everything. "I see," he said, stepping backwards. "I think I'll be going now…" He was very confused.

"Ok then, bye!" said Cherry, waving. "Don't forget, next time you see me, weird stuff will be happening!"

Snape rolled his eyes. "I'll be looking forward to it…" With that, he ducked out of the cramped corridor, slammed the door on the teenagers, and disapparated to his hotel despite the fact that it was a Muggle hotel. He was to confused to think much about safety precautions at the present. He went to his room, had some coffee, and went to bed, deciding that all this would be better in the morning.

Cherry, Matt, and Anthony, however, decided to spend the rest of their evening there at Disneyland. They did get in free, after all, thanks to Cherry's awesome narrator skills! So they stayed until closing time, going on Indiana Jones about three times (that was Cherry's favorite), the Haunted Mansion about forty-nine times (Anthony's favorite), and about twelve times (that was Matt's favorite). Well, at least, they originally went on it twelve times. But then Cherry got freaked out because it was twelve, so they did it one more time so that it would be thirteen times. So anyhow, they had a wonderful time, and they completely forgot about Snape and all the mess of the early evening. Then they all went home and went to bed. And there the story ends for them. Huzzah.

Snape dreamt about sandwiches and old women that night, oddly enough. Not to mention cherries. And there is where his story ends, too. Huzzah.

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Thanks for reading! Please rate and review!


	6. Chapter 6

DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, etc. J.K.R. does. And I don't own any of the stores or other locations in this story; they really exist. However, I did create Cherry. That's me. Heh, I understand it took a rocket scientist's brain to comprehend that, but that's ok. Alan, Annie, Avo, Baylee, Dylan, Erica, Jamie, Katie, Kim, Matt, Stefanie, and Tyler are real people too. Mrs. Carnegie is based on a real person. Wow.

AND NO, ALEXX AND MICHELE AND MARISSA, I PROMISE (and I'm putting this in writing to show you) THAT I DID NOT FORGET ABOUT YOU AND YOU SHALL BE IN THE NEXT EPISODE!

……………………………..

'Twas a cloudy, overcast morning in late May on a street in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The sun was hidden from view, obscured by great billowing clouds, heavy with rain. Their gray bellies were the color of graphite on paper, otherwise known as pencil scribbling. The quiet streets were placid and undisturbed by nothing but by a playful, nippy breeze that chased women's skirts and tugged at the store awnings. The trees were vivid greens, starkly beautiful against the foreground of normal urban life. Neat business people with laptops sipped their piping-hot Starbucks in the small earthy coffee shops that cropped up about one every half-mile. The weather was a diverse contrast to the few bright painted murals on some desolate walls, which seemed to try to be eager and happy, even when faced with such a tragedy as a gloomy day. At this time of day, which was late morning, there was little traffic there in Vancouver. Pigeons overlooked the pedestrians sagely, perched in the busted windows of half torn-down buildings. Someone's discarded newspaper was blowing down the street, pell-mell and out of control, with the audacity of tumbleweed in the desert. The sidewalk remained nearly unlettered, though, and the tagging of the abandoned buildings was very minimal, even in the worst parts of town. Almost every other store, and especially in some areas more than that, was a store of some Oriental sort. And as he lounged comfortably behind a large newspaper, minding his own business, a man observed all of this.

Now this man wasn't horribly conspicuous in the least. His immaculate black suit, white shirt, black unelaborated tie, and shiny black shoes made him appear to be like any other businessman doing whatever businessmen need to do in life. The dark glasses, however, made him look more like a secret service agent. Add that to the fact that he carried no briefcase to speak of, just a small delicate traveling bag, and the fact that his hat was pulled down in order to cover his large forehead and eyes, and he certainly did give the appearance of the popular conception of a spy. However, at second glance, one could tell that despite his clothes, the man wasn't in disguise in any sense of the word. For one, his hair, long and black ringlets that poured resolutely from under his hat like water, definitely was too easily distinguishable for it. (And yes, it was his hair; no one could create such an oily wig that was as realistic as that…) Also, the hat itself was not black, it was an olive green plaid Michael-Jackson style. Then, of course, his nose, large, obtuse, and beaklike, was, like his hair, way too exclusive and recognizable. So, no, this could not be a spy. At least, not a Muggle spy—this was Severus Snape, wizard ambassador and secret service agent for England.

If you, my dear reader, have been following this series for a time, you may have wondered for quite a while what Snape has been doing for the duration of five stories prior to this one in Southern California, the most unlikely place to find him besides Hawaii. Well then, simply put, now is the time for me to explain. (You: silence Me: peeved "Now is the time to cheer dramatically." You: pause. Suddenly start to cheer dramatically. Me: smiles)

Well, folks, two months before he came first to California, Snape was elected by his fellow members of the Order of the Phoenix, years after the SUPPOSED defeat of Lord Voldemort, to be Temporary British Wizard Ambassador to the American Muggles. At least, he was elected to be one of the two other people in his position to be sent to the United States to participate in a year-long international conference located in Los Angeles. His life was actually not all that horrible, considering. His duties were merely to represent himself five times a week at the conference for the entire day, and to act as an occasional peacemaker and go-between where required. He only did this because Dumbledore had told him to, the pay was good, he'd always been meaning to get out of 'claustrophobic' (or so he called it) England, and he got a week off every month and a half. AND he got free food for a year. Nice. The spy part comes in where Snape still is a full-fledged but acquitted Death Eater, and though he does work, in reality, for the greater good of his country, he still comes when the Dark Lord, who is still not destroyed despite the fact that he's disappeared yet again, calls. And to Voldemort, he is still a spy for the Order. Therefore, he is a double-agent.

So basically, there's one little mystery cleared up for you, my readers. However, it just so happens that, on occasion, when one is presented the answer for one question, more questions instantly crop up. This is, actually, as you may have realized, one of those occasions. Now pause a moment. Think about this situation I have just presented to you. If you're a rather intelligent person with more than a few brain cells, you may realize that there is a rather obvious unclarified point. This would be—if Snape is one of the Temporary British Wizard Ambassadors to the American Muggles, and the international conference is in Los Angeles, then _what the heck is Snape doing in Canada?_

A simple answer to just as simple a question—it was his first week off. Now because it was his first week off, he decided to do something quite interesting with it…he came to Canada. He went there for several reasons. One: He was rather missing England (though you wouldn't catch him admitting that unless inebriated). Two: He was sick of the dense, dirty air of Los Angeles, when he was so used to the fresh countryside and sea breezes of England. He had heard Canada was pretty much as clean as you could get in North America, so hence he came. Three: He had never been to Canada before, and he wanted very much to go there. And even though he could have, for the first two reasons, just gone home to England, he decided not to take the trouble and to just go up north, to experience the unique culture. He also felt that this was quite a safe decision from his personal point of view, for he probably would be able to shake off his stalker, the weird girl who called herself Cherry, with his temporary absence from California.

So now Snape was hiding behind his giant newspaper, quite unconcerned as to the state of the world or its occupants beyond the paper. Passerby conveniently did not notice that the pictures moved on this Wizarding edition of the North Shore News, the long-standing Vancouver paper. Snape was so fully immersed in the written word, and so fully enjoying himself while at it. He was oblivious to everything around him, the casual glance of hurried pedestrians, the wry surmises made by homeless vagrants, and the frank bewilderment of the stray dogs trotting in and out of the frequent alleyways. No one understood the rather bizarre man Severus Snape presented himself as, but, then, no one really cared either. He was part of Vancouver now, just another man reading his morning paper on a park bench. He was nearly invisible, and he was just as uncaring of the world that didn't see him.

One thing out there, however, did care about him.

Snape's eyes were becoming heavy and watery as he pressed his greasy, elegant nose against the rough gray paper, smearing the ink until the words were nearly illegible. He was tired and too full from over-indulging (a whole bowl of oatmeal; dear me, what was he coming to? But the cinnamon was so delightful, and the raisins so perfect…wait he had better not think about that, or he'd…never mind…) of the said oatmeal at breakfast. That, combined with sleeping more than was sufficient the night before, made him extremely tired. So he debated with himself whether or not to take a nap right there beneath the newspaper or to continue reading as the words became more and more blurred. Finally, unable to take the exhaustion any longer, Snape leaned back, propped up the open paper against the end of his nose, pulled his hat down even further, and succumbed to sleep.

Behind him, two dark figures advanced from a dim alleyway. They were both short, for adults at least, and both were shrouded in dark cloaks reminiscent of dementor's garbs. Their other features, thus, were hidden from view. Slowly and silently, in the breeze which flirted with their trains, the figures flitted with the elegance of moths. (Snape began snoring gently with slumber at this point.) These figures were mortal, obviously, for they walked on the ground, but one could not tell by their step who they were. Timid, they crept up behind Snape as he slept on the bench, blissfully unaware. And suddenly, very suddenly, the figures were directly behind Snape. The shorter one, who held a notebook in their arm, used a giant feather pen they whipped seemingly out of nowhere and gently began to tickle the end of Snape's nose. It took a moment for Snape to recognize the motion, and the figure kept tickling. Abruptly, Snape sat bolt straight, his glasses slipping and his hat knocking off. His paper gloated tranquilly to the ground, demure and properly abashed. Snape, over the initial shock of discovering the new sensation of being tickled with a feather, spun around on the bench. His locks whipped against his face with the noise of rain pattering against a pane of glass.

He stared at the two quiet figures before him. The figures stared back, but, then, unable to control their mirth, one started to giggle, the one with the notebook. Soon, the other one followed suit, and there they were, Snape glaring angrily at them while these two teenage-girls-disguised-as-dementors laughed at him. Surely there was less dignity in the world then this, but here there was certainly but a small bit, at least in Snape's eyes. He knew, however, who at east one of the 'dementors' was—at least, the one with the notebook. He instantly realized that he was in little danger—or was he?—in their hands. So he turned away, rolling his eyes and regaining his unflustered composure.

"Cherry!" he complained by way of introduction. Cherry, for this was who the girl with the notebook was, nodded and giggled again as she lifted the hood of her cloak. Her companion did the same.

Cherry was a short teenager, as noted earlier, of about sixteen or seventeen years of age. She had sallow white skin, tinged a bit yellow from secluding herself away from sunlight. Her hair was of a dark blonde, and it was long and flowing. Her head was almost spherical in shape, something she hated but could do nothing about, although she did rather appreciate her nose, which she felt was the most normal part of her bodily features…and her personality's, also. Her oceanic, deep blue eyes were unpenetrable and mysterious, but clouded by a certain melancholy that reflected her moods often. No one could really understand her, and though she tried, she couldn't exactly understand herself either. But she didn't care too much about that. Now she was too interested in the matter at hand. Now what, you ask if you've not been keeping up with the series up to now, is this girl's significance? Well, quite simply, she is the writer/authoress/narrator person. At the stroke of her pen, she had the capability to change a situation or scenario to however she likes. And often, how she likes is REALLY REALLY weird, at least to normal people. Well, even to un-normal people too…unless one calls fictional people normal. Anyhow, her favorite thing to do in her stories is torture the characters in them. And often, her style of torture is horrible and poignant, often specifically tailored for the characters she abuses. Her favorite subject of torture—Severus Snape. Big surprise, eh?

Well yes, Snape is a character in Cherry's story. She adores him a lot, and he is her favorite fictional character. Keywordfictional. Please make a note of that. Well, since Snape was fictional and she couldn't visit his world, and since Cherry was real and Snape couldn't (and wouldn't on his own volition) visit her world, she decided to create a fictional optional universe of all its own, a combination of her real world and Snape's fantasy world, rolled into one unique world of her own design. Then the best thing about being supreme over-ruler and controller of this world, being its creator and sole historian and such, she could command everyone and everything however she liked, whenever she liked. So even while the whole purpose of the series was for her to spend time with Snape against his will, she decided to use her odd sense of humor to make her situation very silly. And so the entire series is explained in a satisfactory manner, finally.

ANYHOW back to the second dementor-girl. As she removed her hood, one could see that she was a lot like Cherry in appearance. Her fluffy dark blonde hair, curly and delicately unruly, was tied back in a 'loose' (in her words) ponytail. Her face was long and pale, but not devoid of beauty. Her eyes were penetrating and highly unique blue with gold in the centers, often described by her friends as being 'sunflowers in calm skies.' Her face, overall, was intelligent and inquiring, which was a direct reflection of her personality. Her name was Annie, and she was a very intelligent girl exactly six days younger than Cherry. (This was something Cherry gloated on whenever the topic of age came up, partly because she felt very inferior to her friend, and always strived to put a point on her side of the board.)

Back to the story, though…so Annie and Cherry stood, not exactly unwelcome, but not welcome either, in front of Snape, who calmly gathered his paper from the ground.

"What do you want, girl?" Snape said, completely ignoring Annie, as he tried to hide the fact that he was wholeheartedly in love with Cherry with a barrier of annoyance. Cherry, however, laughed openly now. Annie, who had ceased giggling, looked at her oddly. Then they both burst into another fit of giggles.

Snape turned away disgustedly. How did he adore that girl, whom he had only met once, and who tortured him to high hell so? He did not know; normally she was not in the least the sort of girl he should be attracted to. Al well, he decided, one cannot be in control of one's feelings, as far as affection goes…but, he told himself, he wished he could!

Cherry finally got over her giggling fit.

"We don't want anything," she said in a ridiculous British accent.

"No, we don't," agreed Annie in just a flavorful one.

Snape looked at them, somewhat amused, but still tight-lipped. "I see…" he said dubiously. Cherry giggled again (Merlin, that was getting on his nerves!) and went on to scribbling something in the notebook. The position was rather awkward, with Cherry busy writing, Snape staring at the two teens, and Annie merely standing by in a sort of helpful way. Annie then decided to break the ice.

"So," she said, plunging bravely into the frigid Arctic, "How do you enjoy your life as a double agent?"

Snape stood back in shock and amazement. How did she know what he was? "What?" he glared anxiously.

"I mean, it's sort of a risky job, isn't it?"

Snape shook his head austerely in response. He didn't know how she knew about his occupation, much less how she had the audacity to speak of it so casually, but he wasn't about to give away his secrets to her. "I didn't come to Canada to debate with you or your friends, Miss Cherry," Snape said sullenly, wishing to be rid of the girls.

"Why did you come then?" Annie said. Cherry completely disregarded them both, since she was engaged in writing.

Snape put on his most superior look. "To spend my week of break WITHOUT my stalker or her…friends," he said as derogatorily as possible. Cherry, entirely oblivious to the entire conversation, hastily laid aside her pen with a somewhat triumphant stroke.

"There," she said officially, "Now to business."

"Oh," Snape said, truthfully surprised, but putting a sarcastic tone in his voice, "You actually had a POINT in coming to bother me, then?"

"Yeah, we did," Cherry said genuinely. "We wanted to invite you to a picnic."

Snape was shocked even worse than before. "A…a what?"

"A picnic. Define picnic for me," Cherry said, nudging Annie.

Annie then went into dictionary mode. "Picnics are a type of meal, generally eaten outdoors on a blanket on the ground, or at a table. Picnic food includes, typically, sandwiches, salads, fruit--"

Snape interrupted, however. "Yes, yes, I know what a picnic is," he declared once he had recovered from his surprise. "Why are you inviting ME though?"

"I don't know," Annie said, and Cherry laughed but said nothing. Annie went on, "I don't see why Cherry enjoys writing about you or putting you in her stories anyways. I mean, well…" But here Annie broke off, not sure how to go on without being impolite. Snape read her mind (not literally) though.

"Neither do I Miss…"

"Annie" interjected Cherry sharply.

"…Miss Annie. I do declare, it is quite a mystery to me." (Here a dangerous gleam came into Cherry's eyes. Annie backed away warily.)

"Exactly," Annie said. "I mean, who could like you? You were designed specifically by J.K. Rowling to be an easily hated character. You're a violation of every rule of politeness, a social outcast, a truly odious personality, rude, overly sarcastic, intolerant, too often easily angered, a horrible example of hygiene--"

Here Snape interrupted again. "This I protest! Just because I can't do a thing about my hair doesn't mean I never try! Believe me, it's a continual uphill battle with myself (literally) on that point! And I do shower! Daily! DAILY, I SAY!"

Annie grinned mischievously. "Well, then, you don't ever use soap."

Snape glared. "I DO USE—hey, do you want to take this outside?" He was frothing mad.

Annie rolled her eyes. "Umm…we are outside…"

Snape looked around. "Oh. Right." He paused. "Well, let's take this inside," he said, stupidly, floundering in his previous mistake to deeply to focus on what he was saying. Annie giggled as Cherry quickly smoothed over the situation.

"How about we forget about this and just go to Stanley Park?" Annie received a glare from Snape, who turned away from his newly discovered enemy. He was to find a great number of these before the day was out, not that it would bother him all that much.

"Fine," Snape said angrily. "Lead on." So, without another word, Cherry and Annie turned about and walked away. Snape decided that his nap had been spoiled anyways, followed them angrily. He was appeased by the thought however that wherever he was going, at least he was going with Cherry.

II

They walked all the way from wherever they were to Stanley Park. It wasn't that long of a walk, though, so they can't have been too far away. Soon they had crept into the cool forest atmosphere, green and fresh foliage surrounding their every side. The air, filtered by the huge evergreens and deciduous, was pure and sweet. The dark earth, muddy from the frequent rainstorms that had drenched often that month, was covered with decaying leaves and pine needles. The undergrowth was thick and hardy, young and beautiful. The fragrance of fresh wild berries, blueberries and others scented the air. Snape's mouth watered as he trampled silently behind his company. At this he realized long it had been since he had eaten anything—breakfast. Wow. Hm, maybe this picnic wasn't exactly uncalled for.

Suddenly, as they burst into a clearing, Cherry and Annie dashed away ahead for no reason, throwing off their dementor cloaks to reveal jeans and Canada t-shirts. Snape was somewhat startled by their outburst, spun around to see what they were running from. Since there was nothing behind him and, as he quickly observed, he hadn't randomly sprouted a second head or claws, he assumed that they must be running frantically to something. Somewhat anxious that he should not be left behind, Snape took off after them.

He arrived at the base of the hill where Annie and Cherry were hugging a brown-haired girl, and being progressively surrounded by a multitude of other band geeks, all similarly clothed.

Cherry kept telling the brown-haired girl, "Tam! Oh my God! Oh my God!"

The aforementioned 'Tam' looked excited for her friend, and she kept exclaiming, "I'm so happy for you Cherry!"

And Annie was declaring confidentially to a tall Asian girl, "I really think I offended him, Jamie. It was funny." And she laughed.

"Who?" Jamie asked slowly, her eyes drifting from Annie to Cherry.

"Snape," Annie said.

"Snape who?"

"Severus Snape, Cherry's guy from Harry Potter."

"Ohhhhhh…" And Jamie laughed with Annie.

Other people were surrounding them, besides Jamie. A girl with dark skin and wavelike brown hair had bounced over to Annie and Jamie, dragging a pale boy with shaggy long brown hair and an intelligent look to his eye.

"What the heck is going on?" the girl demanded, "Where did you and Cherry go?"

"Kim's been seriously worried about you two," the guy said.

Jamie squealed, "It's mouse boy!"

"My name is Dylan, thanks very much Jamie," the boy said good-naturedly as the girl named Kim, in unison, exclaimed,

"Jamie, don't call him that!"

Jamie shrugged. "You still remind me of a mouse…"

Dylan shook his head. "You've said that before."

Annie agreed. "Yeah, you have."

"Well it's true…" Jamie protested meekly.

"You still haven't said where you both left to!" Kim interrupted, hugging Annie.

"Well…" Annie began, but was interrupted by an old friend from our last story, Matt, who meandered over and started randomly staring at her, aghast, as though she had done something extremely wrong or weird. "Matt! My God, I thought you only did that to Baylee!"

"Apparently I don't," Matt said calmly while shaking his head slowly, not ceasing to stare at her

"Someone call me?" Another tall Asian girl came over, only this girl was only half-Asian. Her hair was almost black, but more of a dark brown.

"Hey Baylee, hey Sherlock," Cherry said waving to Baylee and Matt.

"Hi Cher," Baylee replied in a friendly manner. Matt just nodded in greeting, never breaking his gaze at Annie, who started staring back at him. Dylan stood and shook his head, restraining the urge to laugh at them. I think they're just going to remain in an unofficial staring contest for quite a while. Dylan decided to make it official though, by mandating himself referee.

Another girl named Katie, who appeared very Norwegian, showed up spontaneously. "You know you two barely got here on time," she declared to anyone who was paying attention to her. And 'anyone' somehow consisted of both Cherry and Tam. The former looked at her.

"We are?" Cherry asked. From her pocket, she grabbed a cell phone and flipped it open. She blushed and shut it hurriedly. "Dear, dear, you're quite right." Cherry looked a bit worried now. "I hope Mrs. Carnegie isn't on the rampage right now or we're certainly going to get it…"

Tam agreed. "Yeah, I know. You know how last night David and John were like two minutes late because they had been in the bathroom?"

"What about David?" Katie asked.

"How they were barely late yesterday after dinner," Tam replied.

"Yeah, I remember that," Cherry said slowly, thinking back.

"Well, she yelled at them both for at least fifteen minutes, delaying us even further." Tam nodded with an intense look.

"Whoah," Cherry remarked.

"Oh yeah, I was there," Baylee put in. "When Chelsea tried to stick up for them, all she got was an evil glare and a nasty rebuke." Snape, feeling ignored by all this meaningless chatter, cleared his throat and commented, lest he be forgotten, "Excuse me, but who is this Mrs. Carnegie?" His features held a hint of irony.

As soon as he said that, Kim (who had been bothering Dylan this entire time) suddenly tuned into the conversation. She pointed dramatically to something behind him.

"That," Kim declared, "Is Mrs. Carnegie."

Snape turned about just in time to see a flash of auburn as it swooped down on a poor student. "Stefanie," the auburn goddess, tall, thin, and alert, pounced on her quarry.

The girl named Stefanie, busy talking to a heavily-mustached boy by the name of Avo (more on him later) quickly gulped and declared, "No."

"Are you SURE?" Mrs. Carnegie was dubious.

Stefanie stuck out her tongue to display. "No gum."

"Mmhmm…" murmured Mrs. Carnegie, and she floated away to some other place.

Snape was rather taken aback. This woman reminded him very much of himself, in the way she carried herself, her attitude, and even her appearance, almost. He had never seen someone so LIKE him before! She had no qualms of being strict with her students. She did not care if she seemed rude; what would they do to her anyways, criticize her? No one ever dared do that to her face, anyhow. It was one of those forbidden things that was against all ethics. If one valued their life, they would not tease the dragon that was Mrs. Carnegie. Snape definitely knew this was a woman he would be able to relate and commiserate with. Perhaps he could even find in her…a friend? Perhaps? He was uncertain, but he considered it at least a possibility.

"Now who is this?" Her cold lofty voice, somewhat nasal without being unmelodic, assaulted him. Snape spun around. Cherry put on a look of almost fierce composure.

"Mrs. Carnegie, this is Severus Snape. He's a friend of mine."

"Ah," the august woman nodded. "Does he live here?"

"No madam, I very much don't." Snape interjected coldly. He became acutely aware of the fact that everyone around them had gotten very, very quiet. He didn't care, however.

Mrs. Carnegie looked at him with mild interest. Her tone became sarcastically sweet and pleasant. "Ah, I see. So nice of you to come along, then."

"I am glad to have your approval," Snape replied just as icily. Mrs. Carnegie rounded on Cherry and Katie. Katie, somewhat disdainful of Mrs. Carnegie, and not being one of the woman's esteemed favorites, melted back into oblivion, abandoning Snape and Cherry. Tam nosed her way into their circle, however, to provide moral support to Cherry lest she need it.

"Smile, Cherry," Mrs. Carnegie said suddenly, noticing as if for the first time Cherry's sullen look that the girl adopted when she was dealing with adults that she felt intimidated by.

Cherry's golden hair quivered as she gently shook her head no. "I have braces," the girl protested meekly.

"That doesn't matter," Mrs. Carnegie declared.

Cherry started to say something, thought better of it, and shut her mouth. Mrs. Carnegie then turned to antagonize Snape. "So you're British?" the woman asked, obviously judging by the fact that he had an accent.

"Yes," Snape said, on the verge of irritable. "And a dmned good country England is, too."

"Now did I say anything against it?" Mrs. Carnegie retaliated sweetly. Snape looked away begrudgingly. "Now, how do you know Cherry?" the woman asked, triumphant after her first success in defeating Snape.

Snape rolled his eyes. "She stalks me." He looked at Cherry as he said that.

Cherry gasped, horrified that he would choose to divulge such a delicate fact so bluntly to such a woman. Mrs. Carnegie laughed fakely. "I see. Well," she put in, "She's quite a leech, isn't she? Can't ever get rid of her, can you?" But Cherry's expression changed to that of relief. Mrs. Carnegie just assumed Snape to be joking.

"Nope he can't," Tam put in laughingly.

Mrs. Carnegie laughed regally once again. "Well, it's been a pleasure meeting you Mr. Snape--"

"PROFESSOR if you wouldn't mind terribly."

"—_Professor_ Snape. I look forward to seeing you around, then." And with that, Mrs. Carnegie left them to go and annoy the heck of a group of parents clustered some distance off.

"So," Tam declared to Snape, "You've met Mrs. Carnegie."

"So it would seem," Snape tartly retorted.

"And…how do you like her?" Cherry asked.

Snape paused. It wasn't every day that people, especially students, asked his opinion of anything, much less anyone. He savored the taste of the moment before responding. "She seems all right. I can tell there is most definitely more than meets the eye about her. I can respect her, I believe. Other than this, I would have to know her better before passing any further judgment."

Cherry nodded. "Very good."

At this, the collective company of teenagers instantly relaxed and went back to talking animatedly among each other, thus ending the awed silence. Snape looked around bewilderedly. Teenagers. AMERICAN teenagers. American MUGGLE teenagers. Blah.

A few minutes passed. Annie and Matt, who had not stopped their staring contest even while the rest of the world was listening in on Snape and Mrs. Carnegie's conversation, continued it. Dylan went back to refereeing, with Kim chattering excitedly to him. Stefanie and Avo came over and started talking to Katie and Tam. Baylee fell into a group with Cherry and Jamie. Snape pretty much just lingered and observed everything around him. Finally, feeling very bored, he wandered off. He had nothing to fear of Mrs. Carnegie, of course; she was not in control of him as she was of her students, so he was free to do whatever he wanted.

At first, he only meant to go to the shade of the forest at the top of the hill. However, once he got into the forest, he decided that he thought he heard a brook. Being thirsty, he set off in search of this traditional source of water. He never did find it; however, he did find a large patch of blueberries. And then Snape decided to, amazingly, pick a few for the heck of it. He did so, and tasted them. Instantly, he was captivated by the sweet tartness of them, so juicy and thick with flavor. Never, never had his taste-buds experienced anything like these before! They were so delicious as to be almost intoxicating; their very flavor suggested deep hues of indigo and violet. And then Snape, being hypnotized almost by them, transfigured a rock into a large basket, and began to fill it up.

This did not take very long. However, Snape realized, a bit into his picking regime, that intermingled with the blueberries were an odd kind of berry he knew about from potion-making that was very, very poisonous. One berry could kill a man on the spot. The berries were called "Casperberries," and they resembled blueberries, only they were more spherical as opposed to ovular, and about the size of peanut M&Ms. Snape carefully avoided these, and made sure not to mix them up.

Soon he had nearly cleared off all the blueberry bushes. Snape was quite content there, peacefully picking blueberries to his heart's content, alone, unbothered, and at peace with the world as far as this tranquility went. He would have wholeheartedly agreed to stay here forever if presented with the choice of such or going back to his normal life. However, he knew this was public Muggle property, in the back of his mind, but he let his fantasies get the better of him for a time. As he was picking berries and dreaming of a beautiful little thatched cottage located right there in the midst of the berry patch, he thought he heard something.

The crashing noises grew louder and louder. In a moment, he realized he wasn't imagining them, and that he should probably do something about them. The question though, was what were they caused by? He was answered once by the yelled, shrill greeting of "SNAPE!"

Oh no. Cherry at it again, stalking him. Great.

"PROFESSOR!"

That wasn't Cherry. The voice was decidedly male. Eh. Nice. Some other one of Cherry's guy friends…

"CHERRY, DID WE LEAVE ANNIE BEHIND?" This was a different male voice. Snape groaned. Ugh. This was really a good day for him, wasn't it? At least, though, this guy was inquiring after a different girl. That Annie girl, actually. Unless it was a different Annie…

"NO, ALAN! SHE'S BACK AT THE BUSSES!" That was that girl friend of Cherry, Tam, Snape could tell.

"WHAT? WE LEFT HER BEHIND!" This was the aforementioned 'Alan.'

"YEAH! SHE WOULDN'T RISK BEING LATE FOR LUNCH! I MEAN, IT'S JUST SNAPE WE'RE LOOKING FOR, AFTER ALL!" That was Tam again.

"WHY ARE WE YELLING? WE'RE LIKE FIVE FEET AWAY FROM YOU!" This was the first male voice again. Snape suddenly recognized it to be Matt's.

"BECAUSE ALAN IS SO FREAKING TALL THAT WE HAVE TO!" This was Cherry.

"WAIT, WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME? I'M ONLY LIKE FOUR INCHES TALLER THAN YOU!" This was Matt again.

"I DUNNO! I GUESS I JUST FEEL LIKE YELLING!" This was Cherry.

"OK THEN!" This was Matt.

And at that moment, the four of them stumbled into the clearing. Snape hadn't bothered to hide himself, and stood up to survey the teenagers.

Alan was a very tall Asian guy (hmm there seems to be a thing for tall Asians in this story, eh…) with glasses and somewhat curly hair. He looked a bit confused, and rather sad. Tam was covered in brush and twigs and stuff, and Cherry began to pick them off meticulously from her shirt. Matt looked around interestedly. None of them noticed Snape, however, for whatever reason. He decided not to bring attention to himself really. Tam suddenly noticed the blueberry bushes.

"Oh my God! Blueberries!" And she dashed over to the bushes, in the process knocking over Cherry, who crashed, in turn, into Matt. They both fell on the ground laughing.

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry!" Tam exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. She was ignored, though.

"Sorry," giggled Cherry, standing up again and extending her hand to Matt to help him up. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah. Are you?" Matt replied courteously.

"Yeah," Cherry said, and she dusted herself off, turning to Tam to give her a jesting reprimand. Then she noticed the blueberries. "Oh my God! Blueberries!" And she dashed over to the blueberry bushes.

Alan looked depressing. "You didn't NOTICE them?"

Cherry laughed, shaking her head. "No!"

Alan shook his head in disbelief. "But that was the whole reason that Tam knocked you over in the first place…"

"Oh. Right. Yeah." And Cherry slapped her forehead.

"No slapping!" Tam whined, and grabbed Cherry's wrist.

"Ok, ok," Cherry replied, yanking her wrist from Tam's hand. Suddenly, her mood changed, and she turned to Alan. "Alan, you have a watch, right?"

"Yeah," Alan replied, looking at it, "It's eleven thirty."

"What time are we supposed to be back?" Cherry looked panicked.

"Erm…I think twelve," Tam said.

"Ah. Ok. Cool. So we still have time," Cherry sighed. She then turned to her notebook and started writing a few sentences down furiously. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a basket appeared in her hands, and she tossed it to Tam. "Let's look for Snape some more. Then we can pick blueberries."

"Ok," Tam replied, and then turned around. And then she saw him.

"That took…how long?" Snape asked, glaring at the sky.

"Now where have YOU been all this time, you naughty character!" Cherry asked condescendingly, as if she were talking to an unruly child.

"I've been HERE."

Cherry paused. "So I see…ah well," she said before anyone could interrupt, "Blueberry time!" And she and Tam started picking blueberries like crazy. Well, since Snape had cleared out most of the blueberries, however, they actually were mainly picking casperberries. Snape didn't even stop them. He was evil like that.

Matt and Alan watched with mild interest. "What is it with girls and blueberries?" Alan asked.

"I have NO idea," Matt replied, observing them.

"I wonder if they intend on eating those berries," Snape said slowly, wondering if the guys would catch on the hint.

Matt looked at him, surprised. "Well duh, what else do you expect to do with them?"

"You could make jam," Alan put in.

"But then you would eat the jam!" Matt said.

Alan paused a moment. "True."

Snape shook his head at the lot of them and said nothing, waiting and wondering which of the girls would fall first.

After a few minutes, Tam looked rather pale and weak. She gasped, fell on her knees, and then to the ground. She began to shake uncontrollably, like one does with the chills. Cherry saw her friend fall. "Tam!" she exclaimed, "What's wrong!"

"Tam?" the guys Alan and Matt asked in unison.

"Ugh, I feel horrible," Tam gasped out. "I'm dying."

Snape realized what had happened, and quickly stepped forward, his hand reaching into his pocket. In a second, he had slipped a bezoar down Tam's throat. And barely a moment later, Tam sat up, perfectly well.

"Oh my God! Tam!" Cherry fell down next to her, hugging her tightly.

"What was…that?" Tam asked, gasping in the midst of her recovery.

Snape stood and stepped back. "These are not blueberries, they are casperberries," he said simply.

Alan looked at him. "Explain?" he said, after a mutual pause.

Snape sighed. "Casperberries are these," he said, picking up the entire basket Tam and Cherry had picked. He threw it to the mercy of the earthworms. "They're extremely poisonous and can kill. However, I administered to the girl a bezoar, so that counter-acted the poison and she did not die."

Matt looked at him astonished. "You KNEW those weren't blueberries?"

"Yes," Snape said calmly.

"The WHOLE TIME?" Alan asked, just as flabbergasted.

"Yes."

There was a short silence. "Why did you have to save her, then!" Alan asked exasperatedly.

"Alan!" Cherry declared, shocked.

"What, I'm only kidding of course, I'm not that mean," Alan consoled her.

"Right…" Matt said, giving Alan a pointed look and staring at him like he had done to Annie.

"Ok, Matt, you're a freak."

"Alan, you're fat."

"Ok then." Alan paused. "Are you going to stop staring at me?"

"No."

Alan shook his head and turned to the other, more reasonable people around him. "Who says that now that we've found Snape, picked the poison blueberries, and almost lost Tam--"

"—Not poison blueberries," Snape interrupted icily, "_casperberries._"

"Yeah, those things," Alan said good-naturedly. "Well, as I was saying," he continued, "Who says that we should go back now?"

"Yeah, we'd better, I think," Cherry agreed. So she helped Tam up off the ground, and they all set off again, Snape rather reluctantly going with them, because, after all, they HAD risked missing lunch to find him.

They reached the top of the hill twenty minutes later. (They knew this because every half a second, Cherry would ask Alan the time. Finally the boy got so fed up with this that he put the watch on Cherry's wrist. She counted off every second as they wandered out of the forest.) Snape was surprised to hear a relative quiet.

"Where are they?" Tam asked. For, indeed, everyone below had…disappeared.

"My…God…" Cherry said, her eyes growing wide. "Did they leave without us?"

"They can't do that," Matt said confidentially.

"I know they can't but still…" Cherry seemed really nervous now. "We'd better go down there," she said, and she led them down the hill.

Suddenly, as they reached the base, a the owner of a voice screaming, "I KNEW IT!" collided with them. A short boy with glasses and dark blonde hair ran over to them. "Cherry! Alan! Tam! Matt! Tall black-haired guy! You guys are in such big trouble!" Mrs. Carnegie is on the rampage and you can't escape her wrath!" The boy sounded, hypocritically, almost as though he relished the fact that Mrs. Carnegie was mad.

"What!" Cherry gasped. "Tyler, what's going on? What did we do?"

"You don't know?" Tyler gaped.

"No! Why would she ask you if she did?" Tam said irritably.

"You guys are like half an hour LATE!" Tyler declared complainingly.

At this, Cherry got out her notebook and began to scribble again. A disconcerted look came on her face. "Why am I writing this?" she wondered aloud, grimacing as she wrote.

"What?" Tam asked, peering over her friend's shoulder. "Are you making bad things happen?"

'"Maybe. You can't read though!" Cherry said, hiding the page quickly.

"Come on Cherry!" Tam tried to persuade.

But even as she spoke, the clouds turned instantly darker, as though someone abruptly switched off the light.

"Ah, I think I'll be going now," Tyler said as he ran far, far away.

Before anyone else could do anything, Mrs. Carnegie swept over from out of nowhere, as though she had popped right out of the sky. And the look on her grave face, angry and exasperated, was bad enough to make one forget every happy memory of their salad days in a glance. Snape conveniently knew how to transfigure himself into a rock, which he commenced to do, and not a moment too soon. No one noticed his transfiguration.

"WHAT THE HLL did you think you were DOING?" exclaimed Mrs. Carnegie, standing there, irate and inconsolable.

All four of the teenagers shrank back as the woman advanced slowly.

"DID YOU NOT REALIZE THAT YOU ARE PUTTING MY LIFE ON THE LINE!" she cried. "WE'VE BEEN WORRIED SICK ABOUT YOU FOR THE PAST HALF HOUR! YOU'RE MORE THAN LATE, YOU'RE SO LATE IT'S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE! WHERE WERE YOU?"

There was only one to reply, because Matt and Tam had put on looks of being interested, but they had, in reality, spaced out. Alan just looked at his feet miserably. (Today was certainly not his day) And, of course, Snape was transmogrified, and was of no use at all. Cherry, therefore, pointed back to the forest whence they came. "We were in the forest," she said.

"AND WHAT WERE YOU DOING THERE? WERE YOU NOT TOLD THIS MORNING NOT TO WANDER OFF ON YOUR OWN WITHOUT A CHAPERONE?"

"We were looking for--"

"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOUR EXCUSES, YOUNG LADY!"

Cherry's jaw snapped shut audibly. Mrs. Carnegie glared at them all for a time.

"You understand that WE cannot leave this park without you? I am RESPONSIBLE for you all! If we can't find you, then we have to STAY here until we do. And if you had been kidnapped, then I would have to STAY IN THIS COUNTRY while the rest of the tour went home to California until I found you. And your parents would SUE ME for losing you. And then MY REPUTATION AS A TEACHER would be ruined, not to mention MY ENTIRE CAREER, and, in due course, MY LIFE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE GRAVITY OF THIS SITUATION?"

Cherry, Alan, Matt and Tam nodded collectively.

Mrs. Carnegie glared at them a moment. "Get in the bus," she snarled, and, meekly, the teenagers crept onto the bus, docile and degraded. Cherry, however, stooped to pick up the rock that was Snape. It was as though somehow she knew…

The entire bus was loud as soon as they boarded. As they passed down the full aisles, the teenagers were assaulted by "Oh my gosh! Where were you?" and "What happened?" and "Did she get REALLY mad?" None of them replied, however, and they all sat disconsolately in the back. When they sat down, gently, Cherry placed the rock that was Snape on the seat next to her. Snape eagerly transformed himself back.

"Wow, I didn't know people could turn themselves into inanimate objects and back again," Cherry said amazedly.

Snape shrugged indifferently. "It is dark magic that takes quite a lot of skill and practice. That is all."

"I see." Cherry nodded. "Well, I hope you like the fact that you got us all in trouble," she said.

"You survived, however," Snape said curtly.

"Well? We still are in deep hot water." Cherry was very annoyed. She suddenly turned away. "If you hadn't run off, we wouldn't have needed to come looking for you."

Snape paused. Cherry was obviously mad at him. He didn't like that, and watched as Cherry began to talk to Matt about some Emos they had seen somewhere. Up in the front of the bus, the driver revved up the engine, and the bus began to hum with constricted motion. In a moment, it was turning out of the parking lot of Stanley Park and out into the midst of Vancouver.

Snape really didn't have much of an idea as to what he was going to do. Should he just stay on the bus and hope not to be noticed? Should he transfigure back into a rock? (he hated doing this, however, because sometimes people stepped on him, and it hurt.) Or, he could disapparate out of there. He knew his options, however, he cared not to use them really. He wanted to stay as close to Cherry for as long as possible. So, he just sat there, going with his first alternative.

Cherry and Matt and a Korean girl named Erica (yet another Asian, grumbled Snape, and, to make it worse, she had a very shiny head) had led the conversation from Emos to murder and blood in general.

"Oh, by the way, Cherry," Erica said suddenly, "In the story you wrote about that thing Jess said "They signify the beginning of the end," you remember how it said, "_Cherry was crouched there in bloodstained robes. We shall learn the significance of these bloodstained robes some other time."_? When are we going to learn about that? I've been wondering ever since I read that"

Cherry shook her head smilingly. "Do you REALLY want me to tell you?"

"Yeah," Erica laughed.

"Do you really REALLY want me to tell you?"

"Is it scary?"

"Maybe."

"Ok, well, I still want to know!"

"Ok then, I'll explain," Cherry began, but she was cut short by the fact that the bus crashed into a wall.

Everyone, at first, didn't realize what had just happened, and just sat there in shock. However, then the girls started screaming and yelling and creating a great hullabaloo about it all, which Snape did not understand. He simply sat there with a bemused look on his face.

It took some time for the confusion to be sorted out. In the end, it was determined that the entire front of the bus was demolished, the driver was killed, and everyone else was just in a great panic. Since the doors were smashed entirely, it was required that everyone climb out of the skylights of the bus, which was kind of fun for some of them.

Snape was most disturbed. This wasn't a good day for him at all. So, before anyone could protest against it, he had disapparated back to his comfortable hotel in another area of Vancouver completely. Here he had lunch, read for a while, wrote a bit, watched some TV even, had dinner, and went to bed at ten o'clock. A very satisfactory end to his rather unsatisfactory day.

Cherry and her friends were all fine. In fact, years later, they all grew up, got jobs, and lived their lives happily ever after. Tam became a veterinarian, married a guy named Sam, and had two kids. After being one of the most abnormal of all of Cherry's friends in her youth, she turned out the most normal in adulthood. Weird. Well, Annie became a famous non-fiction writer and teacher, married a guy named Pinocchio, (no, truly!) and adopted seven kids (she liked big families). Matt became a music director at University of Texas. (I don't know why Texas, though.) Alan became an engineer and worked at a big, big factory. Then he invented a new kind of yo-yo, so he became a rich yo-yo tycoon. I don't believe he or Matt got married to anyone, but, if they did, they didn't tell me about it. glare And Baylee became a real estate agent, convincing people to buy her houses by threatening to kill their children if they didn't. Her tactics worked, and she became really, really rich and so she retired early at age 30. Nice. Well, Kim and Dylan got married, and they both moved to a tropical island in Alaska. Or so Kim said, I may have heard her wrong over the phone connection. Jamie, of course, followed in her parent's footsteps and turned their Chinese food restaurant into a whole chain of Chinese food restaurants. They were made famous from her new kind of bubbly green-tea soda. Katie fulfilled her dream of becoming a history teacher—but one who the students always said was a little 'off.' I'm sorry to say, however, that Tyler died. A piano crashed on his head one day like in the old cartoons, only this piano was meant for someone else. It was very sad; he had originally intended to take over the world, but his plans were, sadly, abruptly put to rest at his demise. Erica was the only one at his funeral, because it was Mother's day and everyone else cared more about their mothers, or pretended to care more about their mothers, than Tyler. Anyhow, Erica's life was pretty nice; she just murdered a few people. (But she never got caught.) One of those people, by the way, was Tyler. And then, later in life, another one of them was Alan. But that's not the point. Avo attained his lifelong dream, just like Katie, and became a vagrant on the street corner, playing violin for quarters. Stefanie ran away and was never seen again sometime after the time Tyler was killed by Erica. I think she may have been secretly in love with him the whole time, but that's just me. But perhaps I'm getting a bit ahead of myself; these futures are all very well, but do you really care? No, I don't think you do.

Well, I may as well let you know, since I've presented you with a synopsis of all the other character's lives, what happened to Mrs. Carnegie. Anyhow, so as soon as the tour group got home, Mrs. Carnegie decided to sue the bus company for the inconvenience of crashing the bus and endangering her life and everyone else's, and won her case, not unexpectedly. (Her husband always had said that she should be a lawyer…) So, basically, she retired with the blood money and lived happily ever after, the end.

And Cherry, you ask? Well, I think she's going to become one of those people who flips burgers for a living. Or else she's just going to become a world-famous fiction writer and an English professor in a university. One or the other.

And Snape? Ha ha, I'm not going to tell you. It would spoil the ending of the series if I told you everything that was going to happen, now wouldn't it? So, basically, you're just going to be patient and have to wait and see, my dear readers, you're just going to have to wait and see.

……………..

Yeah, well, I know this wasn't one of my most hilarious. And I know there's a lot of inside jokes and such. But I do hope you enjoyed it anyways.

Please RATE AND REVIEW!


	7. Chapter 7

DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, etc. J.K.R. does. And I don't own any of the stores or other locations in this story; they really exist, except for Monroe High School. However, I did create Cherry. That's me. Heh, I understand it took a rocket scientist's brain to comprehend that, but that's ok. Alexx, Angela, Avo, Jacque, Marissa, Michele, Mr. Tighe, Mr. Martinez, Erica, Baylee, Tyler, and Travis are real people too. Logan the Llama is based on a real person, as is Mrs. Carnegie. Wow. Oh, and I didn't create Barney the Dinosaur, or anything else you might recognize.

A tall, lanky teenager stood on the sidewalk. The remains of what had been an intense summer rainstorm were dwindling away. The heavy clouds were slightly parted, just enough to see the blue of the sky beyond, and a corner of the yellow sun. It was about midday, probably around the time of noon. The streets of the Southern Californian city were as wet as a shark's dorsal fin, and just as slippery as a mucous-covered ping-pong ball. The heat was building even as the last few drops of rain spattered the ground, which was already starting to steam with the heat. Those so fortunate as to be out in this heinous weather were torn between wanting to get themselves wet to become cooler or staying dry; The wind was picking up too, under the gray clouded sky, but this offered no respite from the menace of the high temperature. The hot-house weather, however, was greatly benefiting the greenery of the area. During the course of daily life there, most of the time, the plants received insufficient water. The dust of nearby L.A. coated their pathetic, shriveled, dehydrated limbs, also. Now, however, with the rain, the plants were feasting on their utmost idol that is H2O, which also cleaned the leaves and stalks until they literally sparkled in the occasional bursts of periodical sun. And amid all this, a young boy stood on the sidewalk, nervously waiting.

Now for once in this impossibly stupid set of short stories entitled The Trivial Events Series, I don't start off initially with Snape. Surprise, surprise, eh? It's taken a while; here we are already at number seven! What do you mean, you don't believe me? Oh, you were being _sarcastic?_ Ok then….well, even if you don't believe me, I'll commence now to prove it to you, my dear readers.

This teenager was tall and skinny, as mentioned before, yet athletic. His muscles, taught and sinewy, are inconspicuously existent. His eyebrows are dark and thick, as was his flaring moustache, which earned him the nickname of 'caterpillar-boy.' His eyes, dark as black coffee, had a hint of mischievousness in them. His skin was tan and vivid, almost passable as Mexican, but not quite. His hair was neat, dark, and commonplace, nothing important or especial. His fingers were long and quite strong, as typical of the male gender. His nose was rather large, but not skewed about in any way. This young man was Armenian, I must note. His name was Avedis…Avo, for short. (See, incredulous readers, I told you! No Snapey yet!)

Avo stood at the corner of the street, his right hand clenching the black plastic handle of his blue violin case. He was, after all, rather talented on that instrument. Under his other arm, he clasped a black folder, orderly and precise. He waved goodbye to his curly-haired, jovial mother, who was driving away to wherever she was going. Then he looked back and forth three times (just as Barney the Dinosaur always recommended) and darted agilely across the wet asphalt, with the grace of a gazelle. He made a mad dash through the ajar chain-link gate in the fence that surrounded Monroe High School. In a second, he was on campus, and racing towards the open door of the band room.

Now this Avo was rather on the late side, today, not that this wasn't the first time. He plunged into the sacred haven of air conditioning that was the band room, and threw himself on the worn green carpeting. More hastily than could be condoned by any good musician, he flung open his violin case, snatched out his loaned violin, grabbed out his violin bow, threw the case shut again without bothering to clasp it, and jammed it into a metal cubicle. With that, he strode carelessly to the front of the classroom, where his fellow mates in string orchestra, and his teacher, (the illustrious Mrs. Carnegie, whom you have met before) were all staring at him. A wave of giggles burst out in the room as he plunked down in the first chair of the first row of the first violins.

The girl he seated himself next to, the girl who held the position of second chair, looked coldly down her nose at him, with the acidity and poise of an angry librarian. As usual, she had placed on the stand, behind her music (just a bit), a dark blue notebook and a feather pen. The girl, in herself, was short, petite, and very serious in nature, at least, right now she was. Her dark blonde hair seemed especially dull today, in the poor lighting of the classroom, and her eyes, dark blue and lustrous, seemed a bit more sad than usual. She softly stroked the violin she held hypocritically, for all the while she was cursing mentally the fact that she was still not able to move to the viola section. Mrs. Carnegie looked at Avo a long time, while this girl did also. But of course, as you may have supposed, this girl was none other than Cherry, the narrator/authoress/Mary Sue of this story. Looking a bit angry, Cherry wrote hastily down a few vile, angry sentences to complete the paragraph she was writing on the sly, never breaking her gaze at Avo.

Avo was a bit weirded out by her glare.

"What?" he mouthed once Mrs. Carnegie's attention turned from him to yet another straggler, coming in from their basketball practice.

"You're the concertmaster. And you're late. Again." Cherry was obviously most irked.

Avo whined back, "Whatever…." and shut up. From behind him, though Avo didn't hear it, a snort of contempt resounded.

The snort came from a very snarky-looking dark-haired man who sat, unaccountably, at the upright piano in the corner. His hair, long, black, and greasy, was just how he liked it. His nose, large, obtrusive, and awkward, was prestigious and snobbish. His eyes, though they were the same color as Avo's, held a different consistency of darkness. Whereas Avo's eyes were lighthearted and a bit furtive, this man's were calculating, dignified, and untrusting. Obviously, this man, clothed in all black, wizard fashion, was no one but Severus Snape, probably one of the least-liked of the people who were publicly recognized Death Eaters. He was invisible, however, at this moment in time, to the Muggle world, thanks to an invisibility charm he had set on himself.

Cherry turned slightly in her chair, so that her eyes met Snape's. She grinned at him, even though she couldn't see him, exactly, for she knew he was there. She had, in fact, invited him to come to this practice, simply because she was weird like that.

Mrs. Carnegie cleared her throat. "Going back to what I was saying," she said grandly, casting her austere gaze again at her latest pupil, "This extracurricular program was meant to provide more opportunities for you to get together to rehearse, and…" And on and on she blabbed, about things her students had already heard from her twenty times before. Not many people were actually listening, although no one was talking, really, behind her figurative back. Everyone was making a pretence of paying attention, while most of their minds were drifting elsewhere. Even Cherry and Avo looked bored to tears up front. Once in a while, Cherry would write something on her notebook, but, otherwise, the entire room was still, apparently enraptured in Mrs. Carnegies' monologue.

Snape was very bored. So yeah, it was partly his fault that Cherry had dragged him here to watch her orchestra at work preparing for their tour of England later that year. He had mentioned in their progressively frequent correspondence since the last story in Canada, that he was a musician. Not that this was a lie, of course; he really did play saxophone and cello rather decently, and had done so for the past decade. But he had hardly suspected that she would yank him here on his day off (well one of his many days off, actually). Ah well, he would have to grin and bear it. Or, perhaps, not even grin, for that matter; he was invisible. And besides, no one cared if he was happy, now did they? Of course not. Let the old boy suffer in vain, or so they thought so cold-heartedly. So, reassured, Snape was scowling profusely, and on the verge of dozing off right there at the piano.

A tap at his shoulder startled him from his near-trance. He jumped, and accidentally pressed down, with his arm, about a third of the keys on the piano, creating a sudden and loud racket. Everyone in the room, including Mrs. Carnegie, was awoken from their respective reveries and was staring at what appeared to them to be an empty piano bench. They couldn't be sure it hadn't been a ghost who had done it, after all. Mrs. Carnegie, if it was at all possible, looked worried. Snape froze, and remained motionless. After a moment, however, in addition to a few hearty dirty looks, Mrs. Carnegie dismissed the incident and resumed her lecture. Only Cherry, of course, knew who had caused the disruption; she rolled her eyes at Snape before turning back to her work. Snape, at this, once his safety was ensured, nervously turned around to see what had startled him.

A girl stood next to him, tall, thin, dark, and haughty. With her large nose and dark hair, she almost was a female version of Snape as a teenager, except for the fact that she was donned in classes. She was wearing a black Japanese silk kimono, embroidered in silver designs. A pen was tucked behind her ear, and a black leather-bound notebook was in her hand.

"Hey, Snape," she whispered nonchalantly, and seated herself beside him on the bench.

"Hullo…" Snape said in a low voice back. The pair sat in silence for a while, neither saying anything at all. Finally, the girl opened her notebook and wrote something. Then she handed the notebook to Snape.

"God," she had put, "Does that woman ever shut up?"

Snape took the pen she proffered and hastened to reply. "Apparently not. Who are you? Or dare I inquire?"

"You may inquire," the girl wrote back. "My name is Marissa. I'm a writer, like Cherry."

"Ah, that explains how you are able to just pop up out of nowhere. You have the powers of narration."

"Exactly."

"Now how," Snape asked, "Would you happen to know me?"

"I know you from Cherry; she talks about you all the time."

Here, as Snape read that, he couldn't suppress a sad, omniscient smile, that was genuine. For, you see, Snape was wholeheartedly in love with Cherry. He desperately didn't want it to be so, however. He didn't know that anyone knew about this but himself, but, nevertheless, Cherry had to know, after all, because she _was_ the Narrator/Authoress. It would have been impossible for her to not know something that was in her own story. She let him believe, however, in his little illusion that she didn't suspect at all, and so far, all was for the better. Marissa noticed Snape's smile.

"You like her, don't you?" she wrote.

"Who? Cherry? Oh no, no." Snape scribbled hastily, being a bit shaken. Was he really that easy to read? Or was it just because this girl was an active authoress that she was able to read his mind? He tried, nevertheless, to regain what composure he had.

"I know what I saw, ok?" Marissa wrote. "I know how guys act, and they all act the same, no matter their age."

Snape sighed, causing a few timid violinists to blink and look around them sharply. "And if I did, what would that mean?"

"Well, I just want to know if you feel that you have any chance with her."

Snape looked down. "Not much of one."

"Now is that your ego speaking, or your brain?"

"My brain, thanks very much."

"Sorry, sorry, no mean to offend, mate. So who do you think she likes, then?"

Snape shrugged. "Someone, undoubtedly, of her age group."

"Who…like…Avo?" Marissa gestured her pen at the boy.

Snape's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps…" He gave the book back to Marissa, who paused, couldn't think of anything else to say, and left the book there.

Mrs. Carnegie jabbered on for what seemed an hour, but was probably more like 59 minutes and 28 seconds. At the end of her monologue, she grabbed her conductor's baton (which, when she held it, made her look like a witch, or so Snape noted) and began to conduct her students in playing some piece by George F. Handel, called Entrance to the Queen of Sheeba. The music wasn't professional quality, as Snape was used to listening to, and they used violins for the solos instead of the traditional oboes, but it was quite good considering that it was only high school students playing it. Periodically, Mrs. Carnegie would abruptly stop them to rework certain sections over and over again, and, occasionally, relocate to the piano where Snape was sitting to pound on it. (Here Snape and Marissa would deftly move so that she wouldn't sit on them. Apparently, Marissa was invisible to the rest of the Muggles, too.)

Snape, in the meantime, watched Cherry and Avo. All at once, now that he suspected that they were something more than friends, he was noticing tiny actions that may have meant more than they seemed. For instance, there was one point where Avo whispered something to Cherry as Mrs. Carnegie's attention was with the basses, and Cherry responded by leaning towards him, smiling hand extended. Snape couldn't see for the presence of one too many music stands if they were holding hands, or just passing rosin back and forth. He highly suspected the former, however. Then another instance was when Mrs. Carnegie declared a five minute break, they were the first ones out of their chairs and out of the room. With a sinking feeling, Snape realized something he hadn't seen before….he was in love with a girl who was in love with another guy who loved her. Why did fate never favor him?

…………

Dejected, Snape left Marissa without even bidding her goodbye; he just left her at the piano. He desperately needed a hamburger to help him forget all this….

Soon, Snape was walking down the street…past the shoe store…past the Plush Cue…past Norms…wait, Norms! They sold hamburgers! Eagerly, Snape crossed the street and entered the restaurant, hoping to Merlin that they didn't have a singing panda on the staff anymore. (See Trivial Delay 2) He was greatly relieved to see the sourmouth old lady there again. He ordered four deluxe hamburgers, then sat down to wait for them on the bench by the counter.

Some little time later, three girls walked in. These girls were rather inconspicuous and such, so Snape didn't take particular notice of them at first. They were contrasting in appearance; one was a Mexican American, the second was Japanese American, the third was Korean American. Respectively, their names were Michele, Baylee, and Erica, and they were the eternal trio. Michele was the shortest, with a cheery complexion and very, very long dark hair. Baylee was by far the tallest, with short dark brown hair. Erica was somewhere in between, as far as height went, with fluffy shoulder-length black hair. They all looked vaguely similar, but not, at the same time.

Baylee ordered a soda and a burger, while Michele and Erica ordered chili cheese fries to share. They sat down next to Snape on the bench in front of the counter, not really noticing him any more than he noticed them. To pass the time, Baylee began to read the menu aloud.

"Sandwiches: BLT…with bacon, lettuce, and tomato…three fifty…TLT…with turkey, lettuce, and tomato…three null…Avo-Gobble…with turkey, avocado, and tomato…three seventy-five…wait a sec…Avo-Gobble? AVO-Gobble!" Here Baylee started laughing. Erica and Michele stared.

"What's so funny about that?" Michele asked, starting to laugh herself, though she didn't really know why.

Erica suddenly got it, too. "AVO-Gobble!" she laughed, joining Baylee. "It's like imagining Avo as a turkey!"

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…" Michele said, then started laughing with her friends.

"I'm going to call him that for the rest of the year," Baylee declared, still as hysterical as a Baylee could get.

"You do that," Michele replied, bobbing her head.

At this, the old lady called their number, and the girls got their food, leaving Snape.

Snape didn't know if these girls were talking about the same Avo that Cherry loved. Heck, he didn't even know the Avo they were talking about was HUMAN. But that small incident had given him a devious idea…

……..

The next day, Mr. Martinez was calmly reading aloud the school bulletin to his science class, when, suddenly, the door burst open to reveal…Mr. Tighe, dressed in his homemade ninja suit!

The door successfully open, Mr. Tighe raced in, screaming bloody murder, flaunting his nunchuks, samurai sword, and precious wooden yardstick. He karate-chopped some random fat kid who was blocked his way, breaking the kid's arm. Mr. Tighe was followed by a girl with curly black hair and glasses (whose name wasn't Marissa, by the way) and someone you may remember from Canada….Tyler. They were racing after Mr. Tighe, trying to restrain their seemingly insane teacher. Mr. Martinez, a quiet, naïve-acting science teacher, simply stared calmly but confusedly at the trio.

"Come on Mr. Tighe, it's gonna be all right," Alexx insisted, trying to grab her teacher's arm to lead him out.

Tyler, in turn, suddenly yelled "SCORE!" and threw himself literally at his math teacher's feet, and held on tight, as though he were scoring a touchdown. He only succeeded in stopping Mr. Tighe by tripping the poor prostrate man, and, in turn, making Alexx trip too. They all were in a dogpile on the floor momentarily. However, Mr. Tighe somehow wriggled out of the mess, and jumped up agilely.

"Mr. Martinez, I need to ask you a favor," Mr. Tighe announced, not pausing even to dust himself off.

Mr. Martinez looked skeptical. "Um…sure. What?"

Mr. Tighe suddenly spun around and surveyed the room suspiciously. When he decided that whatever he was searching for wasn't there, he turned suddenly back to Mr. Martinez. "Have you seen Avedis today?" he asked, as though it were some sacred password.

"Um…no. Actually, I haven't,"

"Mr. Tighe!" Alexx interjected, "Avo's probably just sick! It's not like he's ditching or anything! You know he wouldn't do that!"

"Exactly," Mr. Tighe said in a deep voice, deeper than what was usual for him. "That is why we need to find him. Hi-yah!" With that, he threw open the closet to his direct right. A skeleton on a stand fell out of the closet and clattered to the floor.

"Oh look!" Mr. Martinez said, "It's Gertrude! Hey, we've not been able to find her lately…"

Mr. Tighe ignored him, proceeding to try and shut the door. It jammed against one of the skeleton's feet, and a loud crunching noise resounded throughout the room.

"Well, I guess that's another bone broken on her now…" Mr. Martinez said sadly.

Mr. Tighe didn't even seem to notice. Now he was running all over the room, searching, behind desks, in the cabinets, down the sink drains, in the kid's backpacks, for Avo.

"Is he ok?" Mr. Martinez asked the two students who had tried to tame the crazy ninja.

"I dunno, he might just have made one mistake too many," Tyler said, all seriousness.

"Yeah, all he was doing was he was reading the role, and then, when he saw that Avo wasn't here, he grabbed that ninja suit from his desk, pulled it on over his clothes, and declared that he was going to have to go undercover," Alexx explained rationally.

"We chased him here because we're cool like that," Tyler went on.

"Oh, shut up!" Alexx said, "This is serious!"

At this moment, Cherry came in, unexpectedly. (She was bringing some books from Mrs. Ford's room, just across the courtyard.) It took her a moment to take in the entire situation.

"What's…going on?" she finally asked, but everyone ignored her, because she's quiet and unnoticeable like that. She only has power in her writing; verbal speech in social situations is beyond her domain of reign. However, in between Alexx and Tyler's banter, and Mr. Martinez's calling the office, and Mr. Tighe's eating Ramona Higgle-Wiggin's lunch, what was going on. Now Cherry was a bit scared; her story had gotten wayyyyyy out of control while she wasn't paying attention. To help and try to restore peace and possibly calm it all down, she ran off to the girl's bathroom to call Snape on her cell phone.

………..

Snape was awakened by his Muggle hotel room's phone ringing off the hook. Sleepily, he rose from the bed where he had been napping, and picked up the receiver. He knew who it was even before he heard her voice. "Hullo," he said, for common courtesy's sake.

"Snapey! Come down to my school right now! I need you!"

"…Hold on, what did you say?" Snape asked, trying to hear her over the eruption of squabbling of the very fat turkey he had tied to the table leg. Of course, as you might guess, this turkey was none other than Avo, transfigured. How did Avo the Turkey come to be a turkey, and why did Snape have him tied to his table? Well, simply, Snape kidnapped Avo as soon as Mrs. Carnegie dismissed her orchestra. Then, once he was safely out of reach of any help, he transformed Avo into the turkey we see now. Then he took Avo the turkey home to his hotel, and tied him up. And that was as far as he had gotten with his devious plans. Now Avo was squabbling loudly to try and attract the attention of Cherry on the phone. However, Avo wasn't aware of the fact that he couldn't speak human language anymore. So everything he said came out as a 'Squak! Squak!'

"I said," Cherry said impatiently, louder, "Come to my school right now, I need you here. Meet me in Room 23."

"What the hell for?" Snape asked, but he was met by a dial tone. Cherry had hung up. "Damn," Snape muttered to himself. Hurriedly, he grabbed his coat and made his way to the door. As he opened the door, his eye cast upon Avo the turkey, and a sudden realization came to mind…the cleaning lady would probably throw Avo out of the hotel, if Snape left him. "I suppose you must come with me, then," Snape said, grabbing the rope leash and ripping it off the leg of the table. "Come on…"

……..

Snape arrived at the school five minutes after Cherry's hurried call. When he arrived, right outside Mr. Martinez's room, Cherry saw him through the open door and ran to meet him.

"Oh Snape, there you are!" she said excitedly. "Now I need your help, we've lost someone."

"Who?" Snape asked, though he was perfectly aware that the missing person was Avo.

"Avo," said Cherry quickly. "His mom's over there." She gestured to the curly-haired woman Snape had seen the day before, but now she was crying like a little girl.

A guy with dyed blonde hair was standing with Mr. Tighe.

"I'm a ninja, don't mess with me," Mr. Tighe was saying to the guy with the blonde hair.

"You're not a ninja! You're a samurai! You know, it's not NinjaTighe, it's SamuraiTighe!"

Cherry, at this, screamed. "Oh my gosh, Andy, do you know what you're saying?"

The guy with blonde hair, a.k.a. Andy, shook his head. "Yeah, I do actually. Mr. Tighe's not a ninja, he's a samurai warrior!"

Cherry, at this, sank to the ground. "I wrote that WHOLE THIRD TRIVIAL DELAY (and a quiz on Quizilla!) based on the fact that Mr. Tighe was a ninja! And you're telling me the entire time it was supposed to be that Mr. Tighe is a Samurai?"

"Yeah," Andy said.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Cherry yelled. She looked as stricken as though Darth Vader had come up to her and announced "I am your father." But then, if Darth Vader did that to her, Cherry would be probably pretty jazzed, 'cause she thinks Darth Vader is cool. So…change the metaphor from Darth Vader to Jar Jar Binks, and you get the picture.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" She yelled again. "NOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"MISTAKE!" chanted Tyler jumping from out of the shrubbery.

"Tyler, would you SHUT UP!" cried Alexx, jumping out of the shrubbery after Tyler, "We're supposed to be on a mission here!"

"What the devil is going on!" cried Snape exasperatedly, but no one was listening to him. Cherry was sobbing about her mistake.

Tyler was running around in circles yelling the Mission Impossible theme at the top of his lungs while at random moments yelling "MISTAKE!" to no one in particular. Mr. Tighe was beating up Andy with his assortment of tools, which no one had thought to steal from him. Andy was screaming that he wanted his bass guitar Bessie for some unknown reason. Avo's mom was sobbing because her son had been abducted. Alexx was shouting at Tyler for him to stop acting weird and help her.

Mr. Martinez, who, in the time Cherry ran to the bathroom to phone Snape, had gotten beaten up by Mr. Tighe too, was screaming "My eyes! My eyes!" repeatedly. Even Gertrude the skeleton was adding to the chaos after being shoved carelessly back into her closet. She apparently wanted revenge on Mr. Tighe for squishing her foot so horribly, so she was busy pounding on the cabinet door and screaming for the kids still in the classroom to let her out. None of them, as you might guess, at all dared to.

And amid all this, suddenly, Avo the turkey started playing the violin. Now he must have nicked this violin from the band room or something, because no one knew where he had gotten it. It was just suddenly there, and Avo was busy scratching out Entrance to the Queen of Sheeba. It was, I guess, the only way he could think of to communicate with the world and convey who he was. Now at the sight of seeing a turkey playing the violin, everyone stopped to watch.

Of course, not being in his usual form, Avo did quite horribly at playing, if compared to a human. But, for a bird, it was outstanding. Everyone applauded when he finally stopped scratching, and people were soon throwing quarters, pennies, and dimes at him. Snape watched the proceedings in pure shock. He looked scathingly around to see who may have suspected the secret. No one seemed to, however.

Everyone forgot about whatever they had been troubled with immediately after he finished playing, and then they all headed back to their normal lives. No one remembered the Avo crisis at all, nor what followed. Even Avo's mom forgot about her son, which was amazing.

Cherry ran up to Snape and hugged him. "Snapey!" she exclaimed happily, "Your wonderful turkey saved my story when it was about to explode because of all the randomness! What's its name?"

Snape hadn't thought of that. "Erm…Tom…" he lied gracefully. Cherry hugged him again.

"Ok, Tom it is," she said ecclesiastically. After a moment, she picked up Avo turkey and stroked his head. "You know, Snape," she said, "You should enter Tom in some sort of amazing animal contest."

"Erm…nah." Snape wasn't really interested in that.

"Come on! I even know a contest you could enter him in!"

"Oh really?" He sounded incredulous.

"Yeah! Come on, please? For me."

Snape looked at her. "Fine then, fine then," he said sadly.

"Great!" Cherry hugged him again, wrote a few sentences in the notebook that she ever carried, and tossed over two plane tickets she had conjured up out of nowhere using her narrator skills. "See you in Paris!" she called as she hurried away.

Snape looked at Avo angrily, eye to eye. "See how much trouble you're getting me into, eh?" he said slowly. With a sigh, he grabbed Avo and they disapparated to the airport.

…………….

Not long later, Snape and Avo were at L.A.X., sitting with some of Cherry's friends who were also going to the same contest at a fair called The Carnival of the Animals. These friends consisted of two teenagers about Cherry's age, and their llama. The first teen, a short Mexican guy by name of Travis, was holding the reins of the little white llama, named Logan. Logan was being brushed gently, at the time, by a skinny Philipino girl named Angela. The members of this trio, as mentioned before, were friends of Cherry, and they were Snape and Avo's escorts to Paris. Travis and Angela were most excited, sporting their llama who talked English, French, and Spanish fluently.

Cherry soon ran up to them; she had been off clearing things with customs. "Ok, we're all set, let's go to our gate," she announced, and so they all set off to the airplane gate.

Snape had never been on an airplane before. He found it a highly interesting experience, but soon grew weary of it when his stomach started acting up when they hit turbulence. All in all, the flight was highly satisfactory for being Trans-Atlantic, and nothing of any importance occurred.

Soon they arrived in grand old Paris, their destination. The taxi thing was a bit stressful; almost none of the taxi drivers would take a llama and/or a turkey. However, Travis managed to stuff Logan in one extra suitcase, and Avo in another, and then the taxi drivers never suspected that they were carrying animals. They drove to the Carnival just barely in time for the contest, but they made it.

At the contest, Snape sat down in the private box reserved for the trainers, next to Angela, Travis, and Cherry. In the meantime, a caretaker was escorting Avo and Logan to private stalls, where they would wait until it was their turn to perform. Avo and Logan were a tad squished, but they were all right after they were shaken out a bit.

Many brilliant animals came onto the stage, including a monkey that was trained to find cheese when someone hid it, a parakeet that held its own radio show, and a dog that could swallow fire. During each performer, Cherry always seemed to get quite nervous, and declared for every other one that 'Tom' never would be able to hold a candle to the next one, and worrying herself silly in general. Travis enjoyed poking fun at the monkey that did karate ("He reminds me of Mr. Tighe!" or so he said).

But all too soon, it was Logan's turn. Angela was the one who was presenting him, so she went onto the stage to show him off to the judges.

"Bonjour," Logan announced to the judge, a fat little old man with a cool German hat.

"Bonjour," the little old man said, surprised. He turned to Angela. "Your llama's talent is…speech, correct?"

"Yeah…" Angela replied.

"I…I can't believe it," the judge said. "Please, Miss Angela, can you go sit down?"

Angela slowly walked away from the llama and sat down.

The judge then turned to the llama. "So, Logan," he said slowly, "Now we can prove that you aren't a product of illusion, so speak!"

"Hey sir," the llama said, "You gotta cool hat!"

"Oh really, you like it?" the judge asked, and put it on Logan's head.

And such was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Well, for the next hour, at least, the judge and the llama talked and talked. Everyone in the audience practically fell asleep while Logan and the judge talked about everything from history and politics to rubber sneakers. Finally, the judge was reminded by the secretary of the chairman of the Carnival that he was supposed to limit his judging time to fifteen minutes. Reluctantly, Logan was taken away, and the judge watched him go in tears.

Snape woke up for the next part. It was Avo on the violin.

Cherry smilingly was guiding out Avo. Again, the judge asked Cherry to go sit down again once Avo was situated on stage with his violin. Cherry did so, right next to Snape. The judge then asked 'Tom' to commence. However, since he was being forced to, Avo didn't want to play, like…like a trained turkey. He was a human being in a turkey's body. He wasn't of the caliber to start taking commands.

Cherry was starting to get worried about Avo, however, since he wasn't performing.

"Snapey, what's wrong with him?" Cherry asked anxiously.

Snape looked into Cherry's eyes and saw, within them, just so much that he couldn't think any more. He jerked his wand out of his pocket and, secretly, shot an Imperio curse at Avo. At this, Avo was forced to start scratching out his solo one more time, to a rousing applause. Snape only condoned his own behavior for two reasons…a) it was for Cherry, after all, and b) it was only illegal to do an Imperio on a _human._ No one ever said anything about a _human in an animal's form._ Of course, once Avo's song was finished, Snape stopped forcing him to play. He wasn't THAT cruel.

To make a long story short, the Carnival of the Animals was a grand success for both Logan and Avo. Logan completely won first place by a long shot (it was kinda obvious that that would happen from the moment that the judge gave the llama his hat), and 'Tom' scored a high second place. Cherry, Travis, and Angela were elated, and after the awards ceremony took place, they all went to Starbucks.

As everyone sipped their Fraps and Blended Crèmes, (except for Snape, who got plain old black coffee) Cherry got to talking to Snape. "You're the coolest old guy ever, you know that?" Cherry said enthusiastically as she hugged Snape very out of the blue. Snape felt very warm and tingly inside at that, despite the fact that she had used the world 'old'.

"You're…erm…you're quite a young woman," Snape replied back as feelingly as possible, trying to convey something he knew not to her between the lines. Cherry, however, didn't seem to pick up on his hidden message, and went on to hug Angela and Travis.

"You're both the coolest llama breeders I know," Cherry said as she hugged them both in unison.

"We're the ONLY llama breeders you know!" declared Travis, but he was ignored.

Cherry then went and hugged Logan. "You're the coolest llama in the world!"

Logan only hiccupped in response.

Then Cherry went to Avo. "You're just the BESTEST little turkey in the world, oh yes you are!" she cooed to him. With a kiss to his head, she picked him up and held him. And there is where Snape finally realized something.

"Cherry," Snape said, "Come outside for a moment, please."

"Um…ok…" Cherry said slowly. She followed him out there, nevertheless, still carrying Avo.

Once they were safely outside, Snape said slowly, "Now Cherry, put Avo down."

"Avo?" Cherry asked quietly, looking at the turkey. Snape sighed. He decided that if Avo was the one that Cherry loved, he didn't want to be the cause of her unhappiness by taking Avo away from her.

"Yes," Snape said irritably, "That's the real name of the turkey."

Cherry, at this, put Avo down on the ground.

"Now watch and observe, my dear girl." And with a flick of his wrist, 'Tom' the turkey was again Avo the human.

"EW!" Cherry exclaimed at the sight. "EWWWWW! I kissed him too! EWWWWWW!" Cherry looked as though she were about to cry.

Avo, at resuming his human form, was quite infuriated. At first, he turned to Cherry to yell at her, but, since she was almost in tears, he decided just to cut to the cake and get at Snape.

"What the bloody hell was that for?" Avo cried out.

"Just a simple experiment," Snape said quickly.

Avo started to go on a tangent. "Now when my parents hear about the fact that I was kidnapped by a creepy guy with weird clothes and greasy hair, and--" But Snape cut Avo off by a whisk of his wand. Avo disappeared, sent home safe and sound.

Cherry looked at Snape, then screamed again. "I BLOODY KISSED HIM! EWWWWWWWWWW!" she declared, as though she hadn't made her point clear.

Snape looked at her. He was surprised she was so disgusted. "What?" he exclaimed, "I thought you were in love with him!"

"Hell no! I've never been in love with Avo, and I never will!"

"But what about you two sitting next to each other and holding hands and such all the time?"

"What are you talking about! The only time I touched Avo's hand was accidentally when I was passing him my rosin the other day in orchestra practice!"

"Oh. My mistake, then."

Cherry paused a moment, calmed down. "Snapey, you know, why did you do that to Avo? I mean, he's disgusting and all, but why did you do something so cruel? Is it just me, or were you jealous of him or something?"

Snape quickly shook his head. "Jealous? No. Protective? Yes. I didn't want him to hurt you or anything."

Cherry looked at him. "Oh, ok."

Well, well, well, Snapey. Things are looking rather good indeed for you, now aren't they? Your fears of Avo and Cherry's romantic relationship were not at all well-founded at all. Isn't it good sometimes to be WRONG? Well, at least you still probably have a chance with Cherry.

Cherry paused a moment, then said, "Well, thanks for looking out for me, Snapey." And she hugged him again.

Snape nodded. "You're welcome."

Cherry giggled. "You know," she said, "If I were a wizard or witch I probably would have done the same thing to him. It's pretty funny when you think about it in retrospect."

"Indeed," was all Snape said. He was smiling, however, which was a rare feat for Severus Snape.

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